STOCK MARKETS
TAIEX closes slightly higher
The TAIEX closed slightly higher yesterday as market sentiment remained cautious over the Nov. 3 US presidential election. Contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) was again the anchor stabilizing the broader market, preventing the main board from falling into negative territory at the end of the session, dealers said. The TAIEX closed up 14.88 points, or 0.12 percent, at 12,877.25, on turnover of NT$167.982 billion (US$5.81 billion). TSMC, the most heavily weighted stock on the local market, rose 0.44 percent after fluctuating between NT$451 and NT$456. The semiconductor subindex and the bellwether electronics sector closed up 0.39 percent and 0.19 percent respectively. Foreign institutional investors sold a net NT$599 million of Taiwanese shares on the main board yesterday, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
ELECTRONICS
Alltop approves reduction
Alltop Technology Co (凡甲科技), which supplies connectors for electronic devices and cables for servers, yesterday said that its board of directors approved a capital reduction scheme in which the company would cut 25 percent of its capitalization to NT$546.87 million and shareholders would be paid NT$2.5 per share. As the company sees no urgent need for capital for the time being, it expects that the reduction would increase shareholder returns and help it adjust its capital structure, it said. Shareholders are to vote on the scheme at the firm’s annual general meeting on Dec. 10, after which it would need regulatory approval, Alltop said in a filing. The plan should be completed by the first quarter of next year. Alltop reported cumulative revenue of NT$1.6 billion in the first three quarters of this year, up 13.6 percent from a year earlier.
INTEGRATED CIRCUITS
ALi denies Wi-Fi report
Set-top box IC designer ALi Corp (揚智科技) yesterday denied an Economic Daily News report that it is setting up a Wi-Fi 6 team of 20 people with an aim to mass-produce and sell such products from June. ALi said that the report, which helped push its share price up by the daily limit in Taipei trading yesterday, closing at NT$27.2, was speculation among investors and local media. “This is misleading news and sheer fiction. ALi hereby solemnly denies it,” the firm said in a regulatory filing. The company reported cumulative revenue of NT$1.496 billion in the first nine months of this year, up 0.94 percent from a year earlier. In the first half of the year, the company incurred a net loss of NT$98.23 million, compared with a net loss of NT$195.93 million a year earlier.
CHIPMAKERS
Phison opens US lab
Flash memorychip controller supplier Phison Electronics Corp (群聯) yesterday said that it has opened an enterprise solid-state drive (SSD) engineering lab, and set up a systems integration and engineering group (SIE) in Colorado, with an aim to provide real-time technical support and product-related services for enterprise SSD customers and partners in the region. Making its inroad into the enterprise SSD market, Phison said that the SIE is the company’s first in the US. Phison expects the Colorado team, and the research and development lab, to increase their engineering staff numbers in the next few months to meet the increasing demand. The company did not provide specific figures for the US investment.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last