The nation’s financial holding companies reported record-high unrealized losses of NT$873.2 billion (US$28.66 billion) during the second quarter, as the value of their investment assets plunged amid market routs sparked by the US Federal Reserve’s cycle of rate hikes, data from the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) showed on Monday.
Combined unrealized losses in the first half of this year came in at NT$827.76 billion — NT$661 billion from overseas investments and NT$166 billion from domestic investments, the data showed.
The majority of their losses came from investments in the US, which totaled NT$256.5 billion at the end of June, compared with unrealized losses of NT$38.4 billion at the end of March, the data showed.
Photo: Kelson Wang, Taipei Times
Financial holding companies’ investments in the US increased by NT$503 billion in the second quarter, mainly because local life insurance companies bought more US fixed-income products, the data showed.
China was the second biggest source of losses, with the financial holding firms reporting aggregate losses of NT$53.1 billion, followed by France with losses of NT$31.7 billion, Russia with losses of NT$31.4 billion and Mexico with losses of NT$27.5 billion, the data showed.
The companies also boosted their investments slightly in France, Russia and Mexico, but cut their investments in China by NT$88 billion during the second quarter, the data showed.
Overall, financial holding companies’ overseas exposure totaled NT$23.95 trillion at the end of June, up about 3 percent from the previous quarter, the data showed.
ELECTRONICS BOOST: A predicted surge in exports would likely be driven by ICT products, exports of which have soared 84.7 percent from a year earlier, DBS said DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) yesterday raised its GDP growth forecast for Taiwan this year to 4 percent from 3 percent, citing robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI)-related exports and accelerated shipment activity, which are expected to offset potential headwinds from US tariffs. “Our GDP growth forecast for 2025 is revised up to 4 percent from 3 percent to reflect front-loaded exports and strong AI demand,” Singapore-based DBS senior economist Ma Tieying (馬鐵英) said in an online briefing. Taiwan’s second-quarter performance beat expectations, with GDP growth likely surpassing 5 percent, driven by a 34.1 percent year-on-year increase in exports, Ma said, citing government
UNIFYING OPPOSITION: Numerous companies have registered complaints over the potential levies, bringing together rival automakers in voicing their reservations US President Donald Trump is readying plans for industry-specific tariffs to kick in alongside his country-by-country duties in two weeks, ramping up his push to reshape the US’ standing in the global trading system by penalizing purchases from abroad. Administration officials could release details of Trump’s planned 50 percent duty on copper in the days before they are set to take effect on Friday next week, a person familiar with the matter said. That is the same date Trump’s “reciprocal” levies on products from more than 100 nations are slated to begin. Trump on Tuesday said that he is likely to impose tariffs
HELPING HAND: Approving the sale of H20s could give China the edge it needs to capture market share and become the global standard, a US representative said The US President Donald Trump administration’s decision allowing Nvidia Corp to resume shipments of its H20 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China risks bolstering Beijing’s military capabilities and expanding its capacity to compete with the US, the head of the US House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party said. “The H20, which is a cost-effective and powerful AI inference chip, far surpasses China’s indigenous capability and would therefore provide a substantial increase to China’s AI development,” committee chairman John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, said on Friday in a letter to US Secretary of
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) market value closed above US$1 trillion for the first time in Taipei last week, with a raised sales forecast driven by robust artificial intelligence (AI) demand. TSMC saw its Taiwanese shares climb to a record high on Friday, a near 50 percent rise from an April low. That has made it the first Asian stock worth more than US$1 trillion, since PetroChina Co (中國石油天然氣) briefly reached the milestone in 2007. As investors turned calm after their aggressive buying on Friday, amid optimism over the chipmaker’s business outlook, TSMC lost 0.43 percent to close at NT$1,150
RSS