EQUITIES
US rally spurs investors
Shares in Taiwan yesterday staged a rebound as investors were encouraged by an overnight rally in semiconductor stocks on US markets and focused on the bellwether electronics sector, dealers said. Buying also extended to old economy stocks, especially in the shipping and commodities sectors, as China began easing COVID-19 lockdowns in major cities, leading to hopes of improved demand, they said. The TAIEX closed up 94.53 points, or 0.56 percent, to 16,993.40. Turnover totaled NT$226.694 billion (US$7.76 billion), with foreign institutional investors buying a net NT$2.13 billion of shares after a net sell of NT$19.41 billion on Monday. The electronics sector rose 0.55 percent and the semiconductor sub-index closed 0.61 percent higher, while paper stocks rose 1.12 percent and the transportation sector rose 2.65 percent.
SEMICONDUCTORS
TSMC plans staff subsidy
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is planning to provide subsidies to employees who purchase its shares, the company said yesterday. To attract and retain staff, TSMC is set to launch the share purchase subsidy scheme for its 50,000 employees later this year, the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported yesterday. This is the first time that TSMC has decided to subsidize employees buying its shares, the report said. Under the scheme expected to take effect in July, TSMC employees can have an amount deducted from their monthly salary to buy the company’s shares, while the company would offer subsidies of up to 15 percent to employees for those purchases, the report said. TSMC said that discussions about the subsidy program were under way and that details such as the subsidy rate would be determined during the company’s board meeting next month.
ELECTRONICS
Wiwynn plans NT$25 divined
Cloud computing equipment supplier Wiwynn Corp’s (緯穎科技) board of directors has proposed distributing a cash dividend of NT$25 per share, representing a payout ratio of 50.5 percent based on its earnings per share of NT$49.46 for last year, the company said on Monday. Wiwynn, a subsidiary of contract electronics maker Wistron Corp (緯創), reported record net profit of NT$8.65 billion for last year, up 0.5 percent from 2020, as consolidated revenue increased 3 percent to NT$192.63 billion, the highest in the company’s history. Wiwynn supplies cloud-based servers and solutions to global data center operators such as Microsoft Corp, Facebook Inc and Amazon.com Inc. Due to steady growth in shipments to clients, revenue in the first quarter increased 29.07 percent year-on-year to NT$50.71 billion, the highest on record for the January-to-March period, the company said.
ELECTRONICS
Hon Hai ‘well’ in China
The world’s biggest iPhone assembly campus, on the outskirts of the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou, is operating normally despite lockdowns and mass COVID-19 testing that began in the area last week, the Henan Daily reported. Operated by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), the sprawling assembly site’s importance to Apple Inc’s smartphone supply chain has earned the locality the nickname of iPhone City. “Production at the Foxconn campus is proceeding well with some 200,000 workers,” the newspaper said, citing Foxconn managers within the compound. “The supply lines haven’t been affected by COVID.”
Taichung reported the steepest fall in completed home prices among the six special municipalities in the first quarter of this year, data compiled by Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) showed yesterday. From January through last month, the average transaction price for completed homes in Taichung fell 8 percent from a year earlier to NT$299,000 (US$9,483) per ping (3.3m²), said Taiwan Realty, which compiled the data based on the government’s price registration platform. The decline could be attributed to many home buyers choosing relatively affordable used homes to live in themselves, instead of newly built homes in the city’s prime property market, Taiwan Realty
The government yesterday approved applications by Alphabet Inc’s Google to invest NT$27.08 billion (US$859.98 million) in Taiwan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. The Department of Investment Review approved two investments proposed by Google, with much of the funds to be used for data processing and electronic information supply services, as well as inventory procurement businesses in the semiconductor field, the ministry said. It marks the second consecutive year that Google has applied to increase its investment in Taiwan. Google plans to infuse NT$25.34 billion into Charter Investments Ltd (特許投資顧問) through its Singapore-based subsidiary Fructan Holdings Singapore Pte Ltd, and
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
Micron Technology Inc is a driving force pushing the US Congress to pass legislation that would put new export restrictions on equipment its Chinese competitors use to make their chips, according to people familiar with the matter. A US House of Representatives panel yesterday was to vote on the “MATCH Act,” a bill designed to close gaps in restrictions on chipmaking equipment. It would also pressure foreign companies that sell equipment to Chinese chipmaking facilities to align with export curbs on US companies like Lam Research Corp and Applied Materials Inc. The bill targets facilities operated by China’s ChangXin Memory Technologies Inc
RSS