Share prices dip
Share prices closed down 0.14 percent yesterday, tracking losses on regional bourses and on Wall Street, dealers said.
The TAIEX fell 11.06 points to 7,657.34 on turnover of NT$95.69 billion (US$2.95 billion).
Losers led advancers 1,731 to 793 with 194 stocks unchanged.
Besides the Wall Street lead, most investors chose to stay on the sidelines ahead of earning reports of major technology firms, said KGI Securities Co (凱基證券) trader Randy Chang (張修華).
“Taiwan shares actually pared some early losses, showing that there’s still buying demand,” he said, adding the market was likely to rebound today.
United Microelectronics Corp (聯電), fell 1.21 percent to NT$16.30 while Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) was 0.33 percent lower at NT$61.30.
Asustek shares soar
Shares of Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦) surged yesterday after the netbook computer pioneer on Monday night posted NT$6.497 billion in unaudited net profit in the third quarter, up 1.8 percent from NT$6.38 billion a year earlier.
The Taipei-based company said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange that its unconsolidated revenue in the third quarter was NT$67.057 billion.
That was up 47.9 percent from NT$45.345 billion in the previous quarter but down 4 percent from NT$69.816 billion a year earlier, previously released financial data showed.
ECFA might exclude agriculture
Taiwan and China might not include agricultural products on a list of items that will be subject to tariff concessions upon the signing of an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA), officials and experts said yesterday.
As Taiwan is concerned about the impact of opening to Chinese labor and agricultural products, Beijing is likely to respect Taipei’s requests that agricultural products be excluded from the list for tariff concessions, the officials said while attending an economic seminar in Chengdu, Sichuan Province.
Pang Chien-kuo (龐建國), a former adviser to the Straits Exchange Foundation and a professor at Chinese Culture University, said the proposed ECFA would not need to specify that Chinese agricultural products were barred from Taiwan, but merely exclude them from the list of items for which tariff concessions will be allowed.
Shanghai seeks NT dollar trade
Shanghai applied to Chinese regulators to start a trial program for the exchange of yuan and NT dollars to settle cross-border trade, a senior city official said on Sunday.
The trial may start soon, Fang Xinghai (方星海), director-general of Shanghai’s financial services office, said at the 6th China International Finance Forum in Shanghai. A transcript of Fang’s speech was posted on the Web portal Sina.com, the forum’s media partner.
Taiwanese companies invested about US$5 billion in Shanghai by the end of April, Fang said. Trade between the city and Taiwan amounted to US$13.7 billion in the first eight months of this year, he said.
NT dollar slips
The New Taiwan dollar fell against the US dollar, snapping two days of gains, on speculation overseas investors will pare investment in Taiwanese stocks.
The NT dollar fell NT$0.086, or 0.3 percent, to NT$32.480 at the 4pm close, Taipei Forex Inc said.
The US dollar advanced against eight of Asia’s 10 most-traded currencies outside Japan.
Overseas investors sold NT$4.7 billion more Taiwanese shares yesterday than they bought, stock exchange data showed.
TECH PARTNERSHIP: The deal with Arizona-based Amkor would provide TSMC with advanced packing and test capacities, a requirement to serve US customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is collaborating with Amkor Technology Inc to provide local advanced packaging and test capacities in Arizona to address customer requirements for geographical flexibility in chip manufacturing. As part of the agreement, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, would contract turnkey advanced packaging and test services from Amkor at their planned facility in Peoria, Arizona, a joint statement released yesterday said. TSMC would leverage these services to support its customers, particularly those using TSMC’s advanced wafer fabrication facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, it said. The companies would jointly define the specific packaging technologies, such as TSMC’s Integrated
An Indian factory producing iPhone components resumed work yesterday after a fire that halted production — the third blaze to disrupt Apple Inc’s local supply chain since the start of last year. Local industrial behemoth Tata Group’s plant in Tamil Nadu, which was shut down by the unexplained fire on Saturday, is a key linchpin of Apple’s nascent supply chain in the country. A spokesperson for subsidiary Tata Electronics Pvt yesterday said that the company would restart work in “many areas of the facility today.” “We’ve been working diligently since Saturday to support our team and to identify the cause of the fire,”
China’s economic planning agency yesterday outlined details of measures aimed at boosting the economy, but refrained from major spending initiatives. The piecemeal nature of the plans announced yesterday appeared to disappoint investors who were hoping for bolder moves, and the Shanghai Composite Index gave up a 10 percent initial gain as markets reopened after a weeklong holiday to end 4.59 percent higher, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dived 9.41 percent. Chinese National Development and Reform Commission Chairman Zheng Shanjie (鄭珊潔) said the government would frontload 100 billion yuan (US$14.2 billion) in spending from the government’s budget for next year in addition
Sales RecORD: Hon Hai’s consolidated sales rose by about 20 percent last quarter, while Largan, another Apple supplier, saw quarterly sales increase by 17 percent IPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday reported its highest-ever quarterly sales for the third quarter on the back of solid global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) globally, said it posted NT$1.85 trillion (US$57.93 billion) in consolidated sales in the July-to-September quarter, up 19.46 percent from the previous quarter and up 20.15 percent from a year earlier. The figure beat the previous third-quarter high of NT$1.74 trillion recorded in 2022, company data showed. Due to rising demand for AI, Hon Hai said its cloud and networking division enjoyed strong sales