The management committee of the National Stabilization Fund has activated the NT$500 billion (US$16.7 billion) fund to bolster the local stock market, the Ministry of Finance said in a statement yesterday.
The announcement came after the TAIEX tumbled 25.19 percent from its peak this year, underperforming most of its Asian counterparts, amid mounting uncertainty about the global economy and geopolitical unrest, the ministry said.
The TAIEX yesterday plunged 2.72 percent to close at 13,950.62 points, the lowest level in about two years, with a thin turnover of NT$199.67 billion.
Photo: CNA
Weak investor confidence has triggered panic sell-offs, as the local stock market has slumped deeper than regional peers, the statement said.
“A shrinking daily turnover and persistent net selling by foreign investors show that investors are losing confidence” in the local market, the statement said.
“Considering global political and economic uncertainty, the committee members have agreed to authorize the fund’s executive secretary to activate the fund to restore order in the local market,” it said.
The TAIEX’s 3,393-point rout in the first half of the year has erased about NT$10.1 trillion of stock value, the statement said, adding that it was the worst first-half performance on record.
Overseas fund managers have so far sold a net NT$900 billion of local shares, preventing a recovery on the TAIEX, it added.
The index has fallen 23.43 percent since the beginning of this year, outperforming only the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index’s 35.29 percent loss and NASDAQ’s 27.31 percent drop, the statement said.
The TAIEX has also been the worst performer among global stock markets since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, falling 22.74 percent over the period.
As investor confidence is significantly undermined by uncertainty over the Russia-Ukraine war and the global economic outlook amid accelerating rate hikes by major central banks, it is time for the fund to step in to stabilize the financial market, the statement said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”