EQUITIES
Shares drop on US concerns
Local shares moved lower yesterday as turnover shrank ahead of the conclusion of a two-day policymaking meeting of the US Federal Reserve due later yesterday. Investors remained cautious throughout the session, with many wary of financial woes in the US banking sector, which pushed down shares on US markets overnight. The TAIEX closed down 83.07 points, or 0.53 percent, at 15,553.41, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Turnover totaled NT$201.379 billion (US$6.55 billion), down from NT$224.355 billion on Tuesday, with foreign institutional investors selling a net NT$9.12 billion of shares on the main board, the exchange said.
ELECTRONICS
HTC posts reduced loss
HTC Corp (宏達電) yesterday reported yet another quarterly loss in the first quarter of this year, although it was its lowest loss in seven quarters. The company reported a net loss of NT$680 million in the January-to-March period, down from a net loss of NT$930 million a quarter earlier. Losses per share were NT$0.82, compared with NT$1.12 three months earlier. Dragged by its struggling smartphone business, HTC has reported a net loss nearly 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. Gross margin continued to climb in the first quarter to 40.8 percent from 40.5 percent in the previous quarter, while revenue fell from NT$1.22 billion to NT$980 million over the period.
SHIPPING
TNC plans NT$2.2 payout
Taiwan Navigation Co’s (TNC, 台灣航業) board of directors yesterday proposed a cash dividend distribution of NT$2.2 per share, its highest payout since 2010. The planned dividend represents a payout ratio of 45.5 percent based on earning per share (EPS) of NT$4.83 last year. However, the bulk shipper saw net profit fall in the first quarter due to hikes in interest expenses and foreign exchange losses. Net profit declined 43 percent from a year earlier to NT$140 million, with EPS of NT$0.34. The shipper said it is cautious about its business outlook, citing a patchy economic recovery in China, ongoing trade tensions between China and the US, and global economic uncertainty, which might cause a sharp decline in the demand for bulk goods and negatively affect the rebound of freight rates for shippers.
INSURANCE
COVID-19 claims drop 70%
Non-life insurance companies’ COVID-19 insurance claims fell 70 percent last month from a month earlier to NT$3.33 billion, the lowest they have been this year, Financial Supervisory Commission data showed on Tuesday. The decrease in COVID-19 insurance claims came as the Central Epidemic Command Center in late March tightened its definition for confirmed COVID-19 cases to people with severe symptoms or those who need oxygen therapy. As of last month, total COVID-19 insurance claims had reached NT$268.3 billion since January last year, the commission’s data showed. The considerable payouts have added pressure to insurers’ bottom lines, with their combined net losses amounting to NT$167.7 billion last year, the commission said. To boost their capital adequacy, several insurers have raised NT$112.5 billion in fresh funds and three insurers are expected to inject another NT$30 billion by next month, it said.
OpenAI has warned US lawmakers that its Chinese rival DeepSeek (深度求索) is using unfair and increasingly sophisticated methods to extract results from leading US artificial intelligence (AI) models to train the next generation of its breakthrough R1 chatbot, a memo reviewed by Bloomberg News showed. In the memo, sent on Thursday to the US House of Representatives Select Committee on China, OpenAI said that DeepSeek had used so-called distillation techniques as part of “ongoing efforts to free-ride on the capabilities developed by OpenAI and other US frontier labs.” The company said it had detected “new, obfuscated methods” designed to evade OpenAI’s defenses
NEW IMPORTS: Car dealer PG Union Corp said it would consider introducing US-made models such as the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Stellantis’ RAM 1500 to Taiwan Tesla Taiwan yesterday said that it does not plan to cut its car prices in the wake of Washington and Taipei signing the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade on Thursday to eliminate tariffs on US-made cars. On the other hand, Mercedes-Benz Taiwan said it is planning to lower the price of its five models imported from the US after the zero tariff comes into effect. Tesla in a statement said it has no plan to adjust the prices of the US-made Model 3, Model S and Model X as tariffs are not the only factor the automaker uses to determine pricing policies. Tesla said
China’s top chipmaker has warned that breakaway spending on artificial intelligence (AI) chips is bringing forward years of future demand, raising the risk that some data centers could sit idle. “Companies would love to build 10 years’ worth of data center capacity within one or two years,” Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) cochief executive officer Zhao Haijun (趙海軍) said yesterday on a call with analysts. “As for what exactly these data centers will do, that hasn’t been fully thought through.” Moody’s Ratings projects that AI-related infrastructure investment would exceed US$3 trillion over the next five years, as developers pour eye-watering sums
Australian singer Kylie Minogue says “nothing compares” to performing live, but becoming an international wine magnate in under six years has been quite a thrill for the Spinning Around star. Minogue launched her first own-label wine in 2020 in partnership with celebrity drinks expert Paul Schaafsma, starting with a basic rose but quickly expanding to include sparkling, no-alcohol and premium rose offerings. The actress and singer has since wracked up sales of around 25 million bottles, with her carefully branded products pitched at low-to mid-range prices in dozens of countries. Britain, Australia and the United States are the biggest markets. “Nothing compares to performing
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