Shares close lower
Taiwanese shares closed 3.4 percent lower yesterday on Wall Street’s sharp fall and concerns over oil prices, dealers said. The weighted index closed down 283.28 points at 8,062.31 on turnover of NT$124.86 billion (US$4.11 billion).
“The sharp decline of Wall Street and the concerns over record highs in oil prices dealt another blow to the fragile market,” said Chen Yu-yu of Capital Securities Corp (群益證券).
“Optimism spurred by the possible easing of restrictions on Chinese tourists visiting Taiwan had been reflected over the past few weeks,” Chen said.
On the foreign exchange market, the NT dollar continued dropping against the US dollar and closed NT$0.076 lower at NT$30.451.
Turnover was US$1.092 billion on the Taipei Forex Inc.
AU Optronics eyes new factory
AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), the world’s third-biggest maker of liquid-crystal displays, may spend NT$100 billion (US$3.3 billion) to build an advanced factory to produce large television screens.
The investment would be for the first phase of the plant, with production capacity of about 30,000 panels a month, Hsiao Ya-wen (蕭雅文), a spokeswoman for the Hsinchu-based company, said yesterday. Construction will start next year and the factory may begin production as early as 2011, she said.
“We’re still at an initial planning stage,” Hsiao said.
The company hasn’t decided on the size of the screens to be produced or where in Taiwan the plant will be located, she said.
Electricity use set to increase
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) forecast electricity consumption will rise to record levels this year as an expanding economy fuels demand.
Electricity demand may reach 34,155 megawatts this summer, driving the reserve margin, or spare capacity at times of peak consumption, to 13.6 percent, Taipower said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. That’s below the government target of 16 percent.
Taiwan’s GDP will probably grow 4.78 percent this year, after the 5.72 percent gain last year, the government’s statistics bureau said on May 29.
“Our forecast is based on economic growth,” Clint Chou (周義岳), a Taipower spokesman, said by phone yesterday.
PRC inflation dips
China’s inflation rate dipped to a still-high 7.7 percent last month amid signs that efforts to rein in food prices were finally taking hold, the National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday.
The decline in the consumer price index for last month was down from the 8.5 percent rate in April. However, economists warn that surging prices for crude oil and other commodities pose a continued threat, even as food price increases abate with the arrival of summer.
The lower CPI rate for last month did little to reassure investors jittery over the likelihood of further credit-tightening to contain inflation. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index fell for a seventh day yesterday, sinking 2.2 percent to 2,957.53, its lowest close in nearly 15 months.
Bank appoints new president
Standard Chartered Bank (Taiwan) Ltd (渣打國際商銀) yesterday appointed Sunil Kaushal as its new president and chief executive officer, replacing Jim McCabe on July 1, the lender said in a statement.
McCabe will succeed Wu Chih-wei (吳志偉) as non-executive chairman of the bank, after Wu decided to step down to pursue his own career, the statement said.
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
BRAVE NEW WORLD: Nvidia believes that AI would fuel a new industrial revolution and would ‘do whatever we can’ to guide US AI policy, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Tuesday said he is ready to meet US president-elect Donald Trump and offer his help to the incoming administration. “I’d be delighted to go see him and congratulate him, and do whatever we can to make this administration succeed,” Huang said in an interview with Bloomberg Television, adding that he has not been invited to visit Trump’s home base at Mar-a-Lago in Florida yet. As head of the world’s most valuable chipmaker, Huang has an opportunity to help steer the administration’s artificial intelligence (AI) policy at a moment of rapid change.
TARIFF SURGE: The strong performance could be attributed to the growing artificial intelligence device market and mass orders ahead of potential US tariffs, analysts said The combined revenue of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange for the whole of last year totaled NT$44.66 trillion (US$1.35 trillion), up 12.8 percent year-on-year and hit a record high, data compiled by investment consulting firm CMoney showed on Saturday. The result came after listed firms reported a 23.92 percent annual increase in combined revenue for last month at NT$4.1 trillion, the second-highest for the month of December on record, and posted a 15.63 percent rise in combined revenue for the December quarter at NT$12.25 billion, the highest quarterly figure ever, the data showed. Analysts attributed the
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