EQUITIES
Foreigners sell NT$50.3bn
Foreign investors last week sold a net NT$50.3 billion (US$1.57 billion) of local shares after buying a net NT$5.01 billion a week earlier, the Taiwan Stock Exchange said in a statement yesterday. As of Friday, foreign investors had sold NT$1.29 trillion of local shares since the beginning of the year, it said. The top three shares bought by foreign investors last week were Innolux Corp (群創), United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) and AUO Corp (友達光電), while the top three shares sold by foreign investors were E.Sun Financial Holding Co (玉山金控), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) and Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控). As of Friday, the market capitalization of shares held by foreign investors was NT$16.13 trillion, or 39.41 percent of total market capitalization, it said.
EQUITIES
Exchange calls for buybacks
The Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday encouraged listed companies to implement stock buyback programs to enhance investor confidence. The exchange also called on executives and board directors to increase holdings of their company’s shares to bolster market confidence. It said that listed companies should consider their cash flow management to protect corporate credibility and shareholders’ interest in buyback programs. From Jan. 1 to Friday last week, listed companies executed 53 buyback programs, 46 of which were expired, completed or ceased to implement, it said. Listed firms are expected to pour in NT$1.52 billion to repurchase their shares through the remaining seven programs, it said.
LABOR
Furlough numbers increase
The number of the nation’s furloughed workers grew by 1,719 from the previous week to 15,050 last week, with most of them from small tourism agencies and the manufacturing sector, the Ministry of Labor said yesterday. Department of Labor Standards and Equal Employment Deputy Director Wang Chin-jung (王金蓉) said the highest number of furloughed workers, 1,195, were from small travel agencies which have yet to benefit from the reopening of the border on Thursday. Of the 208 furloughed workers in the manufacturing sector, about 100 were from a machine tool maker due to a decline in orders, Wang said. Eighty-eight workers on unpaid leave were from retail and wholesale businesses, while 85 and 81 were from the transportation/logistics and hotel/restaurant industries respectively, she said.
SEMICONDUCTORS
ISTI posts record profit
Chip inspecting services provider Integrated Service Technology Inc (ISTI, 宜特科技) yesterday said it expects geopolitical tensions and reduced production from customers would not affect its business as it reported record-high pretax profit for the third quarter. It said that pretax profit grew 162 percent year-on-year to NT$167 million last quarter, the highest for the same period on record. That translated into pretax earnings per share of NT$2.28. Consolidate revenue totaled NT$975 million last quarter, also a record high, with gross margin reaching 31.1 percent. Strong demand for verification and analysis of automotive chips, advanced processes, advanced packaging and compound semiconductors last quarter, as well as contributions from subsidiaries and affiliates, contributed to revenue and pretax profit, it said. In the first three quarters, pretax profit totaled NT$371 million, up 126 percent year-on-year, with pretax earnings per share of NT$5, it said.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Taiwan has enough crude oil reserves for more than 100 days and sufficient natural gas reserves for more than 11 days, both above the regulatory safety requirement, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, adding that the government would prioritize domestic price stability as conflicts in the Middle East continue. Overall, energy supply for this month is secure, and the government is continuing efforts to ensure sufficient supply for next month, Kung told reporters after meeting with representatives from business groups at the ministry in Taipei. The ministry has been holding daily cross-ministry meetings at the Executive Yuan to ensure
RATIONING: The proposal would give the Trump administration ample leverage to negotiate investments in the US as it decides how many chips to give each country US officials are debating a new regulatory framework for exporting artificial intelligence (AI) chips and are considering requiring foreign nations to invest in US AI data centers or security guarantees as a condition for granting exports of 200,000 chips or more, according to a document seen by Reuters. The rules are not yet final and could change. They would be the first attempt to regulate the flow of AI chips to US allies and partners since US President Donald Trump’s administration said it rescinded its predecessor’s so-called AI diffusion rules. Those rules sought to keep a significant amount of AI
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