INVESTMENT
Foreigners net sellers
Foreign investors last week sold a net NT$18.39 billion (US$573.2 million) of local shares after selling a net NT$10.39 billion a week earlier, the Taiwan Stock Exchange said in a statement yesterday. As of Friday, foreign investors had sold NT$1.36 trillion of local shares since the beginning of the year, it said. The top three shares sold by foreign investors last week were Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), Mega Financial Holding Co (兆豐金控) and E.Sun Financial Holding Co (玉山金控), while the top three shares bought by foreign investors were Innolux Corp (群創), SinoPac Holdings Co (永豐金控) and Career Technology Co (嘉聯益). As of Friday, the market capitalization of shares held by foreign investors was NT$15.61 trillion, or 38.44 percent of total market capitalization, it said.
TECHNOLOGY
Zhen Ding revenue up 29%
Zhen Ding Technology Holding Ltd (臻鼎), the nation’s leading printed circuit board (PCB) supplier, yesterday posted revenue of NT$21.19 billion for last month, up 29.86 percent year-on-year and the highest monthly sales in the company’s history, thanks to handset launches by a major customer. It brought the company’s cumulative revenue in the first 10 months of this year to NT$139.64 billion, up 21.54 percent year-on-year, the company said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (元大投顧) yesterday forecast Zhen Ding’s PCB shipments for handsets and laptops to be higher this quarter than last quarter, adding that its handset PCB shipments for a major US brand would peak this month, after which shipments would fall sequentially. Average selling prices of the company’s products are predicted to drop by 2 to 5 percent this quarter from last quarter after the peak of mass production ends, Yuanta said.
INVESTMENT
Program supports SMEs
The Executive Yuan has approved a program worth billions of New Taiwan dollars designed to improve the competitiveness of Taiwan’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with a focus on four key areas, Executive Yuan spokesman Lo Ping-cheng (羅秉成) said on Thursday after the weekly Cabinet meeting. The NT$95 billion program, which runs from this year through 2026, would receive funding from government agencies, Lo said. It also seeks to foster world-class businesses by improving the competitiveness of SMEs in the areas of zero emissions, digital transformation, value-added innovation and co-prosperity, he added.
INSURANCE
Regulator approves funds
Taiwan’s non-life insurance companies are expected to raise nearly NT$100 billion in total capital by the end of the year as COVID-19 insurance claims continue to rise and some insurers are planning to conduct more capital injection to improve their financial state, the Financial Supervisory Commission said on Thursday. Six non-life insurers — Cathay Century Insurance Co (國泰世紀產險), CTBC Insurance Co (中國信託產險), Fubon Insurance Co (富邦產險), Tokio Marine Newa Insurance Co (新安東京海上產險), Hotai Insurance Co (和泰產險) and Chung Kuo Insurance Co (兆豐產險) — have obtained regulatory approval to raise combined capital of NT$70.7 billion, the commission said. Cathay Century Insurance and Tokio Marine Newa Insurance are planning to conduct second capital increases of NT$10 billion and of NT$7.5 billion respectively, the commission said.
This time was supposed to be different. The memorychip sector, famous for its boom-and-bust cycles, had changed its ways. A combination of more disciplined management and new markets for its products — including 5G technology and cloud services — would ensure that companies delivered more predictable earnings. Yet, less than a year after memory companies made such pronouncements, the US$160 billion industry is suffering one of its worst routs ever. There is a glut of the chips sitting in warehouses, customers are cutting orders and product prices have plunged. “The chip industry thought that suppliers were going to have better control,” said
Enimmune Corp (安特羅生技) has obtained marketing approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its EnVAX-A71 vaccine for enterovirus 71 (EV-71), becoming the nation’s first enterovirus vaccine completely made in Taiwan, it said yesterday. After spending 13 years and NT$1.5 billion (US$49.77 million) on the research and development of the vaccine, Enimmune plans to start manufacturing and marketing it by the end of March, the company said in a statement, without disclosing customer order figures. “It is possible that the vaccine would not be included in a national vaccination program initially, and consumers would need to pay for it themselves,” parent
Vaccine skeptics blocking transfusions for life-saving surgeries, Facebook groups inciting violence against doctors and a global search for unvaccinated donors — COVID-19 misinformation has bred a so-called “pure blood” movement. The movement spins anti-vaccine narratives focused on unfounded claims that receiving blood from people inoculated against COVID-19 “contaminates” the body. Some have advocated for blood banks that draw from “pure” unvaccinated people, while medics in North America say they have fielded requests from people demanding transfusions from donors who have not received a vaccine. In closed social media groups, vaccine skeptics — who brand themselves as “pure bloods” — promote violence against doctors
Asteroid mining start-up AstroForge Inc is planning to launch its first two missions to space this year as it seeks to extract and refine metals from deep space. The first launch, scheduled for April, is to test AstroForge’s technique for refining platinum from a sample of asteroid-like material. The second, planned for October, would scout for an asteroid near Earth to mine. The missions are part of AstroForge’s goal of refining platinum-group metals from asteroids, with the aim of bringing down the cost of mining these metals. It also hopes to reduce the massive amount of carbon emissions that stem from mining
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