EQUITIES
Foreigners are net sellers
Foreign institutional investors last week sold a net NT$9.31 billion (US$306.54 million) of local shares, after selling a net NT$200 million the previous week, the Taiwan Stock Exchange said yesterday. The top three shares sold by foreign investors last week were E.Sun Financial Holding Co (玉山金控), EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空) and Waffer Technology Corp (華孚科技), the exchange said in a statement. The top three shares bought by foreign investors were Innolux Corp (群創光電), China Airlines Ltd (中華航空) and AUO Corp (友達光電), the exchange said. As of Friday last week, foreign investors had bought NT$235.64 billion of local shares since the beginning of this year, while the market capitalization of the shares held by foreign investors was NT$19.75 trillion, or 40.80 percent of total market capitalization, it said.
HOSPITALITY
Eight local hotels awarded
Eight local hotels and two spas were among the winners selected by this year’s Forbes Travel Guide Star Awards, with the Mandarin Oriental Taipei (文華東方酒店) receiving a five-star rating for the seventh consecutive year. Forbes published the list of winners online last week. According to its Web site, inspectors stayed at each of the hotels for three days and two nights to assess up to 900 objective criteria such as the quality of the decor and courtesy of the staff. Four other hotels in Taiwan — Regent Taipei (台北晶華酒店), Taipei Marriott Hotel (台北萬豪酒店), W Taipei and Shangri-La’s Far Eastern Plaza Hotel Taipei (台北遠東國際大飯店) — received four-star ratings, while Grand Hyatt Taipei (台北君悅大飯店), Humble House Taipei (寒舍艾麗) and Eslite Hotel (誠品行旅) were rated “recommended” by Forbes.
INNOVATION
Local firms make top 100
Eleven Taiwanese entities are among the world’s top 100 innovators, according to this year’s list disclosed by global information services provider Clarivate Analytics last week. The government-sponsored Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院), flat-panel maker AUO Corp (友達光電), power management solutions provider Delta Electronics Inc (台達電子), iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), smartphone IC designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科技) and DRAM chip supplier Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) are among the best innovators in the world, according to the Top 100 Global Innovators list. ITRI is a seven-time entrant, while Hon Hai, known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) overseas, was named for the sixth consecutive year. With 11 entities, Taiwan had the second-largest number of innovators on the list in Asia, trailing Japan with 38 organizations.
ELECTRONICS
Hon Hai partners Ohio team
Hon Hai Technology Group (鴻海科技集團) on Friday last week announced a partnership with an Ohio-based MLB Draft League team that plays in the area where the electric vehicle plant it acquired last year is located. In a Facebook post, Hon Hai said it has become a partner of the Mahoning Valley Scrappers, a team in Major League Baseball’s Draft League, and would support the squad’s young prospects. Through the partnership, Hon Hai is to sponsor five home games this year that are to feature special jerseys and take part in the team’s weekly “Every Sunday Matters” activity. The company said that proceeds of jersey sales would go to the local community and charity. The partnership comes after Hon Hai purchased the Ohio plant of Lordstown Motors Corp in May last year.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
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