Astro Corp (泰偉電子) and Firich Enterprises Co (伍豐科技), gambling-related stocks, fell in Taipei trading after residents voted against a government plan to allow Taiwan’s first casinos in Penghu.
Astro, a software maker for arcade game machines, lost 7 percent to NT$73.4, the most since June 15, at the close on the Taiwan Stock Exchange. Firich Enterprises, a point-of-sale terminal maker that invested in a lottery business, slid 6.9 percent to NT$78.10, also the most since June 15. The benchmark TAIEX declined 0.8 percent.
Some 56 percent of residents voted against a plan to allow casinos on Penghu, the local government said in a press release on Saturday.
The poll may delay developers’ plans until at least 2012, when the law will allow a repeat referendum. AMZ Holdings PLC owns 11 hectares on Penghu and had planned to bid for a license as soon as the government sets up a regulator and gaming guidelines, the company said in January.
“Investors are disappointed with the result,” Andy Wei, who helps manage the equivalent of US$3.1 billion at PCA Securities Investment Trust Co (保誠投信), said in an interview yesterday.
“If it were passed, there could be a lot of business opportunities and may result in new gambling-related companies. We are now back to square one,” Wei said.
Taiwan legalized casinos in January on its outlying islands of Kinmen, Matsu and Penghu, pending approval in a referendum by local residents.
The government aims to boost tourism and lure gamblers from Macau as a global recession cuts into earnings from exports and slows domestic consumption. Casinos remain banned on Taiwan proper.
“You have to wait three years to get Penghu to go through another referendum, but you do have other outlying islands such as Kinmen, which is only 7 kilometers off the coast of mainland China,” said Sean Monaghan, an independent business consultant and gaming analyst.
“You’ve really got to expect the government to put in a lot more hard work in planning and communicating potential regulations. There is still an awful lot unknown for everyone,” he said.
Casino operators including Las Vegas Sands Corp are building gaming resorts in Asian cities such as Macau and Singapore, helping to boost the number of visitors and draw conventions and similar events.
AMZ said in January it plans to invest as much as US$300 million to build a five-star, 500-room resort on Penghu in order to win a casino license.
Taiwan’s economy will probably contract 3.52 percent this quarter after the economy slipped into its first recession since 2001. The nation’s jobless rate climbed a 12th straight month to a record high of 6.07 percent last month.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
RATIONING: The proposal would give the Trump administration ample leverage to negotiate investments in the US as it decides how many chips to give each country US officials are debating a new regulatory framework for exporting artificial intelligence (AI) chips and are considering requiring foreign nations to invest in US AI data centers or security guarantees as a condition for granting exports of 200,000 chips or more, according to a document seen by Reuters. The rules are not yet final and could change. They would be the first attempt to regulate the flow of AI chips to US allies and partners since US President Donald Trump’s administration said it rescinded its predecessor’s so-called AI diffusion rules. Those rules sought to keep a significant amount of AI
Apple Inc increased iPhone production in India by about 53 percent last year and now makes a quarter of its marquee devices there, reflecting the US company’s efforts to avoid tariffs on China. The company assembled about 55 million iPhones in India last year, up from 36 million a year earlier, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named because the numbers aren’t public. Apple makes about 220 million to 230 million iPhones a year globally, with India’s share of the total increasing rapidly. Apple has accelerated its expansion in the world’s most populous country in recent years, bolstered
HEADWINDS: The company said it expects its computer business, as well as consumer electronics and communications segments to see revenue declines due to seasonality Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it aims to grow its artificial intelligence (AI) server revenue more than 10-fold this year from last year, driven by orders from neocloud solutions clients and large cloud service providers. The electronics manufacturing service provider said AI server revenue growth would be driven primarily by the Nvidia Corp GB300 server platform. Server shipments are expected to increase each quarter this year, with the second half likely to outperform the first half, it said. The AI server market is expected to broaden this year as more inference applications emerge, which would drive demand for system-on-chip, application-specific integrated circuits
RSS