Shares in Taiwan closed sharply higher yesterday, with buying sparked by a US tech rally at the end of last week, continued global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) technology and positive signals from trade talks over the weekend between US and Chinese officials.
The TAIEX ended up 538.09 points, or 1.14 percent, at 47,718.84, with leading AI chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) gaining 0.81 percent to close at NT$2,480.
Turnover on the local main board was NT$820.22 billion (US$25.83 billion), Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
Photo: CNA
“Although the US Federal Reserve hinted at another rate hike by the end of this year after last week’s 25 basis point increase, major cloud service providers continued to pump funds into AI infrastructure, prompting investors to pick up tech stocks at home and abroad,” Concord Securities Co (康和證券) analyst Kerry Huang (黃志祺) said. “In Taipei, strong buying continued to benefit semiconductor stocks, led by TSMC.”
“Chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) also attracted interest as investors appeared upbeat about its efforts in application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) development to tap the AI era,” he added.
MediaTek soared 6.37 percent to end at NT$5,010. AIchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), another ASIC designer, rose 3.53 percent to close at NT$3,665.
The financial sector continued an uptrend on hopes that the Fed’s rate hike would boost interest income, with Fubon Financial Holding Co rising 2.66 percent to close at NT$154.50 and Cathay Financial Holding Co up 2.26 percent at NT$113.0.
International crude oil prices fell more than 2 percent early yesterday as vessel traffic and energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz picked up, although the Strait has remained largely closed and uncertainty persisted over US-Iran tensions.
Brent crude, the international standard, fell 2.5 percent to US$101.31 per barrel, while benchmark US crude lost 2.6 percent to US$93.57 per barrel.
“A fall in crude oil prices also improved market sentiment today, so investors should keep a close eye on how military conflicts in the Middle East will evolve,” Huang said. “In addition, the summit between Washington and Beijing later this week is worth watching.”
On Sunday, US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent told reporters following talks with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) in New York that the US had “a very successful engagement” with the Chinese side, ahead of the expected meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) later this week in Washington which could cover trade, AI and geopolitics.
UNION DETERMINATION: Rejecting an offer for a one-time payout as an attempt to influence opinion, the union said a strike at the memory chip manufacturer is possible The Micron Taiwan workers’ union yesterday rejected a one-time payout unveiled by US-based Micron Technology Inc last week, saying it wants a long-term mechanism under which employees would share 15 percent of the company’s operating profits. While the union and the company are still in talks over the dispute, the reward package was proposed unilaterally by the employer without reaching an agreement with the union, union head Jerry Lin (林哲瑞) told reporters. Lin said he suspected the company was seeking to influence public opinion with the move. On Friday last week, Micron announced a reward package under which employees in Taiwan would receive
MINIMAL EXPECTATIONS: Analysts think that the two sides are likely to aim for ‘status quo’-level agreements, maintaining civility, without major trade breakthroughs US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) were set to meet yesterday to try to set up potential agreements on artificial intelligence (AI), tariffs and critical minerals for a summit in Washington this week between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). The meetings at JPMorgan Chase & Co’s headquarters in Manhattan, which included US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, were due to start at about 10:30am on Sunday morning and were expected to run all day. Key topics would be the status of a US-China trade truce that is set to expire
BUILDER’s RITES: The topping out ceremony is held when a project being built has its highest point laid out, a sure sign that TSMC’s European project is making solid progress A “topping out” ceremony was held on Monday at a plant under construction in Germany by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), indicating that the fab is progressing as planned and within budget, the head of a joint-venture company in charge of the project said. A topping out ceremony is the construction milestone of laying the final beam or structural piece at the highest point of a building, and it honors the construction crew, architects and engineers. European Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (ESMC) president Christian Koitzsch said that about 2,000 workers from 106 countries are working around the clock at the site in
APPEAL: Any agreement to produce advanced memory such as HBM or DRAM could run into opposition from Seoul as those technologies are sensitive, sources said South Korea’s SK Hynix Inc is in talks with Intel Corp about a deal that would see it manufacture memory chips on US soil for the first time, three people familiar with the discussions said. Under one potential scenario, SK Hynix would lease part of Intel’s long-planned chipmaking facility in Ohio, they said. Under another scenario, it could form a venture with Intel and major cloud firms that are keen to lock in memory supplies, two of the people said. A deal would relieve pressure on Intel, which has been struggling, and mark a big win for US President Donald
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