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.
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Intel Corp regards Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as a longstanding partner, as the US chipmaker would continue outsourcing production of advanced chips to TSMC, Intel chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said yesterday. “I don’t look at people as competitors. I look at the collaboration... Nvidia is also, you know, a good friend,” Tan told a news conference following his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “It’s a very trusted partnership for us... We are a big, top customer for them, and we’re going to continue doing that,” he said, referring to TSMC, the world’s largest foundry
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday said it would work with US chipmaker Intel Corp to jointly develop and deploy next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and intelligent computing platforms in a move to capture booming demand for AI computing systems. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康), said in a statement that the partnership would combine its global manufacturing scale, system integration expertise and AI data center deployment capabilities with Intel’s strengths in processor architecture, silicon technologies and software ecosystem. The companies said they plan to work on equipment used in AI data centers, including server racks powered by
Artificial intelligence (AI) agents would supplant smartphones as the center of people’s digital lives, fundamentally reshaping personal devices and driving a major computing upgrade cycle, Qualcomm Inc CEO Cristiano Amon said yesterday. In his keynote speech for this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei, Amon said that the rise of "agentic AI" — AI systems capable of reasoning, planning and carrying out tasks autonomously — would transform how people interact with technology across phones, PCs, vehicles and wearable devices. Describing the technology as the next major evolution in computing, Amon said that "2026 is the year of agents.” For decades, smartphones have sat
RSS