EQUITIES
Foreigners are net buyers
Foreign institutional investors last week bought a net NT$119.55 billion (US$3.99 billion) of local shares, the highest amount for the period since 2005, after the local bourse was closed the previous week due to the Lunar New Year holiday. Slower US Federal Reserve rate hikes and optimism of a cyclical recovery for technology stocks, in particular semiconductors, are driving the buoyant market sentiment, analysts said. The top three shares bought by foreign investors were contract chipmakers United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), as well as power cable manufacturer Walsin Lihwa Corp (華新麗華), the Taiwan Stock Exchange said in a statement yesterday. The top three shares sold by foreign investors were iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控) and First Financial Holding Co (第一金控), the exchange said. As of Friday last week, foreign investors had bought NT$245.15 billion of local shares since the beginning of the year, while the market capitalization of the shares held by foreign investors was NT$20.17 trillion, or 41.33 percent of total market capitalization, it said.
ELECTRONICS
HTC Corp revenue tanks
HTC Corp (宏達電) yesterday reported consolidated revenue more than halved from a month earlier last month to a second-lowest since the company listed its shares on the Taiwan Stock Exchange in 2002. Revenue dropped 58.74 percent month-on-month to NT$215 million, the lowest monthly figure since April last year, when it posted NT$209 million in revenue, company data showed. Last month’s number was also 40.2 percent lower than a year earlier amid weakening market demand. HTC has yet to release its earnings report for last quarter and last year as a whole, but the company, hurt by its struggling smartphone business, has run a net loss every quarter since the second quarter of 2015, except for the first quarter of 2018, when an asset sale helped it post a quarterly net profit. While the company managed to diversify its product mix and develop its virtual reality business to take pressure off its lackluster smartphone sales, revenue for the whole of last year declined 16.1 percent year-on-year to NT$4.41 billion, the company reported on Jan. 6.
SHIPPING
Local firms face challenges
Local shippers could face three challenges this year — a slowing global economy and less trade, sliding shipping rates and a potential price war, Evergreen Marine Corp (長榮海運) chairman Chang Yan-yi (張衍義) said on Wednesday last week at an event organized by the National Association of Chinese Shipowners in Taipei. Weakening global trade would be the primary headwind for the sector, after major organizations and research institutes forecast the global economy would further decelerate from last year. Meanwhile, sliding shipping rates are putting pressure on shippers’ bottom lines, with smaller firms likely going into the red this year, he said. The adverse development is unlikely to end this year, as many shippers plan to place new vessels into service in the coming months, which would increase capacity and create a glut, and potentially price wars, he added. Echoing the same cautious observation, Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp (陽明海運) chairman Cheng Cheng-mount (鄭貞茂) said that there is no sign of a quick turnaround ahead and the effect of China lifting its “zero COVID-19” policy on its economy remained to be seen.
PERSISTENT RUMORS: Nvidia’s CEO said the firm is not in talks to sell AI chips to China, but he would welcome a change in US policy barring the activity Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company is not in discussions to sell its Blackwell artificial intelligence (AI) chips to Chinese firms, waving off speculation it is trying to engineer a return to the world’s largest semiconductor market. Huang, who arrived in Taiwan yesterday ahead of meetings with longtime partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), took the opportunity to clarify recent comments about the US-China AI race. The Nvidia head caused a stir in an interview this week with the Financial Times, in which he was quoted as saying “China will win” the AI race. Huang yesterday said
Nissan Motor Co has agreed to sell its global headquarters in Yokohama for ￥97 billion (US$630 million) to a group sponsored by Taiwanese autoparts maker Minth Group (敏實集團), as the struggling automaker seeks to shore up its financial position. The acquisition is led by a special purchase company managed by KJR Management Ltd, a Japanese real-estate unit of private equity giant KKR & Co, people familiar with the matter said. KJR said it would act as asset manager together with Mizuho Real Estate Management Co. Nissan is undergoing a broad cost-cutting campaign by eliminating jobs and shuttering plants as it grapples
The Chinese government has issued guidance requiring new data center projects that have received any state funds to only use domestically made artificial intelligence (AI) chips, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. In recent weeks, Chinese regulatory authorities have ordered such data centers that are less than 30 percent complete to remove all installed foreign chips, or cancel plans to purchase them, while projects in a more advanced stage would be decided on a case-by-case basis, the sources said. The move could represent one of China’s most aggressive steps yet to eliminate foreign technology from its critical infrastructure amid a
MORE WEIGHT: The national weighting was raised in one index while holding steady in two others, while several companies rose or fell in prominence MSCI Inc, a global index provider, has raised Taiwan’s weighting in one of its major indices and left the country’s weighting unchanged in two other indices after a regular index review. In a statement released on Thursday, MSCI said it has upgraded Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country World Index by 0.02 percentage points to 2.25 percent, while maintaining the weighting in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, the most closely watched by foreign institutional investors, at 20.46 percent. Additionally, the index provider has left Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country Asia ex-Japan Index unchanged at 23.15 percent. The latest index adjustments are to
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