EQUITIES
TAIEX rises on AI optimism
The TAIEX yesterday moved sharply higher on buying sparked by gains on Wall Street on Friday and ongoing optimism over the development of artificial intelligence (AI) applications, dealers said. While semiconductor stocks took a pause after a recent solid upturn, buying shifted to contract PC makers which also roll out AI servers, they said. The electronics index rose 1.17 percent, and the computer subindex gained 4.03 percent, while the semiconductor subindex edged up 0.52 percent, Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) data showed. The TAIEX closed up 168.66 points, or 1 percent, at 17,084.20. Turnover on the main board totaled NT$332.014 billion (US$10.67 billion), with domestic proprietary traders buying a net NT$13.2 billion of shares, while investment trust companies sold a net NT$798.27 million and foreign institutional investors sold a net NT$1.73 billion in shares, TWSE data showed.
EQUITIES
Foreigners sell NT$60.4bn
Foreign institutional investors last week sold a net NT$60.4 billion of local shares after buying a net NT$1.93 billion the previous week, the Taiwan Stock Exchange said in a statement yesterday. The top three shares sold by foreign investors last week were Walsin Lihwa Corp (華新麗華), Innolux Corp (群創) and AUO Corp (友達), while the top three bought were Tatung Co (大同), Unizyx Holding Corp (合勤) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶). As of Friday last week, foreign investors had bought NT$374.11 billion of local shares since the beginning of this year, while the market capitalization of shares held by foreign investors was NT$21.67 trillion, or 40.85 percent of total market capitalization, the exchange said.
SEMICONDUCTORS
TSMC pay hits NT$2.33m
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) median pay worldwide reached about NT$2.33 million last year, while the average compensation received by its production workers exceeded NT$1 million, a report released recently by the company showed. The average monthly income of TSMC employees last year was about four times Taiwan’s minimum monthly wage of NT$25,250, the company’s sustainability report said. It recruited 12,442 employees worldwide last year, including 7,817 for new high-quality jobs, providing competitive wages and incentives to maintain its talent pool, it said. On the back of improving finances, TSMC’s total compensation to employees worldwide grew NT$74.5 billion, or 45 percent, from a year earlier, to NT$239.5 billion last year, it said. Last year, the turnover rate of new hires was 15 percent, and the total turnover rate was 6.7 percent, the report said.
BANKING
E.Sun plans 150 voice ATMs
E.Sun Commercial Bank (玉山銀行) plans to add 150 automatic teller machines (ATMs) featuring voice guidance capabilities for the visually impaired by the end of this year after launching 99 similar machines last year. A special keypad on the machines enables users with visual impairments to locate numbers while making transactions, the bank said. “It is our goal that all of our bank branches have at least one ATM for the visually impaired by the end of this year,” E.Sun Financial Holding Co (玉山金控) president Joseph Huang (黃男州) said on Wednesday. The move is part of the bank’s efforts to build an inclusive financial service for clients, he said.
Elon Musk’s lieutenants have reached out to chip industry suppliers, including Applied Materials Inc, Tokyo Electron Ltd and Lam Research Corp, for his envisioned Terafab, early steps in an audacious and likely arduous attempt to break into the production of cutting-edge chips. Staff working for the joint venture between Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) have sought price quotes and delivery times for an array of chipmaking gear, people familiar with the matter said. In past weeks, they’ve contacted makers of photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, testers and other tools, according to the people, who asked not to
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
Taiwan is attracting a growing number of foreign jobseekers as companies increasingly recruit overseas talent to ease labor shortages and expand global reach, recruitment platform 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) said yesterday. More than 40,000 foreign nationals searched for jobs in Taiwan through the platform last year, a 28 percent increase from a year earlier, the company said. Malaysians accounted for the largest share of overseas jobseekers at 12.2 percent, followed by Indonesians at 11.9 percent and Vietnamese at 10.8 percent. Indonesian applicants surged more than 50 percent year-on-year, while Vietnamese jobseekers rose by more than 30 percent. Applicants from the
Taichung reported the steepest fall in completed home prices among the six special municipalities in the first quarter of this year, data compiled by Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) showed yesterday. From January through last month, the average transaction price for completed homes in Taichung fell 8 percent from a year earlier to NT$299,000 (US$9,483) per ping (3.3m²), said Taiwan Realty, which compiled the data based on the government’s price registration platform. The decline could be attributed to many home buyers choosing relatively affordable used homes to live in themselves, instead of newly built homes in the city’s prime property market, Taiwan Realty
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