Public confidence in the economy and stock performance weakened slightly this month, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine weighed on markets and inflationary pressures intensified, a survey by Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控) showed yesterday.
A total of 36.6 percent of respondents believed the economic outlook would worsen, as opposed to 36.4 percent who remained positive, the online survey of 20,540 people from March 1 to 7 showed.
About 22 percent said the situation would stay the same, while the remaining 4.8 percent had no opinion.
Photo: Chiang Ying-ying, AP
The nation’s largest financial service provider attributed the sentiment decline to the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which has pushed up the prices of international crude, base metals and grains.
Still, about 82 percent expect Taiwan’s economy to grow at least 2 percent this year, compared with the government’s projection of 4.15 percent growth, it said.
However, 88.7 percent of respondents believed inflation would expand 3 percent or higher, easily outpacing economic growth, the survey showed.
While people have turned negative about the TAIEX, they demonstrated an increased willingness to raise their positions, as price corrections have made local shares more attractive, the survey showed.
More than 32 percent of respondents said they were willing to increase their holdings, outpacing 17.3 percent who said they would rather hold cash. A majority, 50.4 percent, said they would stay put.
At the same time, 33.4 percent said they would increase consumption of big-ticket items in the next six months, compared with 22.6 percent who said they would shrink the budget.
Cathay Financial said stabilized COVID-19 inflections helped boost consumption.
Furthermore, inflationary expectations led 39.7 percent of respondents to believe it would be wise to sell their homes now — a new high since October 2014 and close to 41 percent who held opposing views, the survey showed.
The findings did not factor in the central bank’s interest rate hike last week.
INTERGRATION: Jensen Huang said that every Nvidia department and function of the company should be using AI, after reportedly saying staff were ‘insane’ not to Nvidia Corp is in a “unique” position in the market, despite facing intensifying competition, chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said during a brief visit to Taiwan yesterday amid a potentially growing challenge from Google for the artificial intelligence (AI) chip market. Huang told reporters that the AI market is “extremely large” and that while there is a lot of competition, Nvidia’s “condition is very strong and our position is very unique.” Huang, who arrived in Taipei on Thursday, was responding to questions about the possible threat posed by Google. According to a report in The Information on Tuesday, Meta has been in
Charming US President Donald Trump one week, angering China the next, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has had a busy start and is riding high in the polls, all on a few hours of sleep a night. However, the honeymoon might end soon for the Margaret Thatcher-admiring leader if a spat with China escalates further and she fails to keep inflation in check. “I believe Prime Minister Takaichi will surely do what she needs to do, so I trust her,” Kozue Otsuka, 50, told reporters at a festival this week for business owners seeking good fortune. While buying a lucky kumade rake featuring
INSULATED: The company said it is less exposed to global complications, as it has built a strong footprint worldwide, and has multiple sources of rare earths and raw minerals Merck Group yesterday said it would ramp up production next year at its new flagship facility in Kaohsiung’s Lujhu District (路竹) to satisfy growing demand for advanced semiconductor materials and specialty gases, and to address supply resilience issues amid mounting geopolitical risks. Merck made the remarks during a news conference before the inauguration of its 500 million euros (US$582.1 million) facility, which is also to supply other markets in the Asia-Pacific region, it said. Merck executive board deputy chair and electronics CEO Kai Beckmann told reporters the company adopted a “local-for-local” strategy about seven years ago to address the cycle time of
TECH TITANS: Amazon’s latest chip joins Google in competing for the 90 percent market share held by Nvidia, which claims it is ‘a generation ahead of the industry’ Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Tuesday launched its in-house-built Trainium3 artificial intelligence (AI) chip, marking a significant push to compete with Nvidia Corp in the lucrative market for AI computing power. The move intensifies competition in the AI chip market, where Nvidia dominates with an estimated 80 to 90 percent market share for products used in training large language models that power the likes of ChatGPT. Google last week caused tremors in the industry when it was reported that Facebook-parent Meta Platforms Inc would employ Google AI chips in data centers, signaling new competition for Nvidia. This followed the release last month of
RSS