Share prices close higher
Taiwanese share prices closed up 1.49 percent yesterday as follow through buying lifted most large cap stocks after investors left Wall Street’s latest weakness behind, dealers said.
The TAIEX rose 109.22 points to 7,439.96 on turnover of NT$90.49 billion (US$2.81 billion).
“The gains just reflected strong investor interest in getting dividend income,” Grand Cathay Securities (大華證券) analyst Mars Hsu said.
Among large cap stocks, smartphone maker HTC Corp (宏達電) rose 6.92 percent to NT$471.50 after some foreign institutional investors recommended buying the stock, while Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) gained 1.82 percent to NT$61.40. Hsu said, however, that the buying had its limits.
“Concerns over a possible slowdown in the world economy remain in place after the United States and China reported falling manufacturing indexes,” Hsu said, adding that “volatility of global stock markets may continue.”
“I am afraid that the stock dividend interest is not strong enough to help the market stand well above the nearest resistance at the 7,500-7,600 point range anytime soon,” Hsu said.
CPC to buy new tankers
CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油), the state-owned oil company, and its partners in a shipping venture plan to commission the building of six crude oil tankers and one oil-product carrier to replace existing vessels.
The venture, in which the oil refiner will hold 48 percent, may spend NT$30 billion on the vessels, CPC vice president Lin Maw-wen (林茂文) said by telephone yesterday.
Taiwan-based shipping companies U-Ming Marine Transport Corp (裕民航運) and Chinese Maritime Transport Ltd (中國航運) will each have a 26 percent stake.
The vessels will replace CPC’s existing fleet of 10 carriers to comply with international regulations, Lin said.
World Cup boosts lottery sales
As the World Cup enters the semi-finals, domestic soccer fans are hitting the betting tables in droves as the nation’s sports lottery sales have exceeded NT$500 million in less than a month, Taiwan Sports Lottery said yesterday.
That represented a six-fold growth on a year-on-year basis, the sports lottery issuer said.
In a match last week, the issuer was the biggest winner after 90 percent of local soccer fans placed their bets on Brazil, which unexpectedly failed to defeat the Netherlands to win a spot in the quarter-finals.
That game also helped to boost sales of lottery tickets, which hit a record high of NT$37 million in a single game, the issuer said.
The issuer further expressed confidence in meeting its sales goal of NT$600 million before the World Cup season ends.
Foreign reserves hit new high
The nation’s foreign exchange reserves hit a new record high of US$362.38 billion last month, US$2.26 billion higher than a month earlier, the central bank said yesterday.
Last month’s foreign exchange reserves were boosted primarily by returns on the central bank’s investments, the bank added.
Taiwan remained the fourth largest holder of foreign exchange reserves, trailing only China with US$2.45 trillion (recorded in March), Japan with US$987.6 billion (posted in May) and Russia with US$418.8 billion.
NT dollar gains slightly
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday gained slightly by NT$0.058 to close at NT$32.22 against the greenback on turnover of US$472 million.
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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,
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
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) quarterly sales topped estimates, reinforcing investor hopes that the torrid pace of artificial intelligence (AI) hardware spending would extend into this year. The go-to chipmaker for Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc reported a 39 percent rise in December-quarter revenue to NT$868.5 billion (US$26.35 billion), based on calculations from monthly disclosures. That compared with an average estimate of NT$854.7 billion. The strong showing from Taiwan’s largest company bolsters expectations that big tech companies from Alphabet Inc to Microsoft Corp would continue to build and upgrade datacenters at a rapid clip to propel AI development. Growth accelerated for
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