Kuo Tai-cheng passes on
Kuo Tai-cheng (郭台成), former chairman of Foxconn Technology Co (鴻準) and brother of Terry Gou (郭台銘), Taiwan's second-richest man, died yesterday of cancer, a company spokesman said.
Kuo, born in 1961, died at 2:17pm in a Beijing hospital accompanied by his wife and brother, said Edmund Ding (丁祁安), spokesman for Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密). Foxconn Technology is an affiliate of Hon Hai, of which Gou is chairman.
Kuo stepped down as chairman of Taipei-based Foxconn on May 19, according to a filing to the Taiwan stock exchange. The statement did not state a reason for his resignation.
Nokia chooses Synnex
Nokia of Finland plans to boost its presence in Taiwan by using Synnex Technology International Corp (聯強), as the "fulfilment distributor" for Nokia cellphones, a newspaper reported yesterday.
The Commercial Times said that the announcement came after Synnex had been dismissed by Chunghwa Telecom (中華電信) as its cellphone distributor.
Nokia sells about 17 million cellphones each year in Taiwan and commands about 30 percent of the market. Synnex will not only handle Nokia cellphone sales, but also take care of logistics.
P/E ratio of stocks up
The average price-to-earnings ratio (P/E ratio) of stocks listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange was 20.26 at the end of last month, up by 18.47 compared with the end of May, statistics showed.
Financial stocks had the highest P/E ratio among all sectors at 49.16, while steelmakers posted the lowest P/E ratio of 8.97.
The average yield of all stocks listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange dropped from 4.29 percent in May to 3.93 percent last month, the stock regulator said. The average price-to-book ratio climbed from 1.9 in May to 2.06 last month, the statistics showed.
Vietnam approves investment
The Vietnamese government has approved an investment project proposed by Taiwan's Chinfon Trading Group (慶豐貿易集團) to produce compact trucks, vans and motorbikes in southern Vietnam, a Vietnamese daily reported yesterday.
Chinfon Trading Group, which has already invested more than US$700 million in 26 investment projects in Vietnam, is planning to channel another US$78 million into the country, the report said.
The report said Chinfon had submitted the investment proposal two years ago, planning to produce 10,000 trucks and vans per year. Construction of the factory is expected to start before the end of this year.
The Chinfon Trading Group has in the past invested in banking, cement processing, shrimp farming and the health industry in Vietnam.
Taiwan is the largest source of foreign investment for Vietnam.
Memory makers' shares rise
Shares of Samsung Electronics Co, Hynix Semiconductor Inc and other computer memory chipmakers rose on optimism that prices of the product will rise and boost earnings this quarter.
Chipmakers will raise prices of dynamic-random-access memory, or DRAM, by at least 10 percent this month from last month, Dramexchange.com (集邦科技), Asia's biggest spot market for the chips, said in a statement yesterday. That would be the biggest increase since March last year, Taipei-based DRAMeXchange said.
Prices have plunged more than 60 percent this year, eroding earnings at DRAM companies.
In Taiwan, Powerchip Semiconductor Corp (力晶半導體), the nation's biggest DRAM maker, advanced 1.7 percent, while Nanya Technology Corp's (南亞科技) stock rose 1.6 percent to close at an almost five-year high.
SELL-OFF: Investors expect tariff-driven volatility as the local boarse reopens today, while analysts say government support and solid fundamentals would steady sentiment Local investors are bracing for a sharp market downturn today as the nation’s financial markets resume trading following a two-day closure for national holidays before the weekend, with sentiment rattled by US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff announcement. Trump’s unveiling of new “reciprocal tariffs” on Wednesday triggered a sell-off in global markets, with the FTSE Taiwan Index Futures — a benchmark for Taiwanese equities traded in Singapore — tumbling 9.2 percent over the past two sessions. Meanwhile, the American depositary receipts (ADRs) of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the most heavily weighted stock on the TAIEX, plunged 13.8 percent in
A wave of stop-loss selling and panic selling hit Taiwan's stock market at its opening today, with the weighted index plunging 2,086 points — a drop of more than 9.7 percent — marking the largest intraday point and percentage loss on record. The index bottomed out at 19,212.02, while futures were locked limit-down, with more than 1,000 stocks hitting their daily drop limit. Three heavyweight stocks — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (Foxconn, 鴻海精密) and MediaTek (聯發科) — hit their limit-down prices as soon as the market opened, falling to NT$848 (US$25.54), NT$138.5 and NT$1,295 respectively. TSMC's
TARIFFS: The global ‘panic atmosphere remains strong,’ and foreign investors have continued to sell their holdings since the start of the year, the Ministry of Finance said The government yesterday authorized the activation of its NT$500 billion (US$15.15 billion) National Stabilization Fund (NSF) to prop up the local stock market after two days of sharp falls in reaction to US President Donald Trump’s new import tariffs. The Ministry of Finance said in a statement after the market close that the steering committee of the fund had been given the go-ahead to intervene in the market to bolster Taiwanese shares in a time of crisis. The fund has been authorized to use its assets “to carry out market stabilization tasks as appropriate to maintain the stability of Taiwan’s
STEEP DECLINE: Yesterday’s drop was the third-steepest in its history, the steepest being Monday’s drop in the wake of the tariff announcement on Wednesday last week Taiwanese stocks continued their heavy sell-off yesterday, as concerns over US tariffs and unwinding of leveraged bets weighed on the market. The benchmark TAIEX plunged 1,068.19 points, or 5.79 percent, to 17,391.76, notching the biggest drop among Asian peers as it hit a 15-month low. The decline came even after the government on late Tuesday authorized the NT$500 billion (US$15.2 billion) National Stabilization Fund (國安基金) to step in to buoy the market amid investors’ worries over tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump. Yesterday’s decline was the third-steepest in its history, trailing only the declines of 2,065.87 points on Monday and
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