EQUITIES
Foreigners buy NT$29.96bn
Foreign investors last week bought a net NT$29.96 billion (US$1.08 billion) of local shares after buying a net NT$48.5 billion a week earlier, the Taiwan Stock Exchange said yesterday. The top three shares foreign investors bought last week were Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), E.Sun Financial Holding Co (玉山金控) and Shin Kong Financial Holding Co (新光金控), while the top three sold were United Microelectronics Corp (聯電), Innolux Corp (群創) and Winbond Electronics Corp (華邦電子), the exchange said. As of Friday, the market cap of shares held by foreign investors was NT$24.61 trillion, or 43.79 percent of total market capitalization, it said.
MANUFACTURING
Value Valves sales hit high
Value Valves Co (捷流閥業) yesterday reported record revenue of NT$2.4 billion for last year, up 0.59 percent from the previous year, after posting better-than-expected sales for last month — up 8.11 percent year-on-year to NT$207.29 million. The company, which manufactures a range of valves with facilities in Taiwan and China, attributed the strong results to rising demand for valves in the petrochemical, shipping and electronics industries. The company said rising orders for cryogenic valves, which are used in liquefied natural gas carriers, also contributed to revenue growth.
MANUFACTURING
Iron Force sales fall 1.87%
Iron Force Industrial Co (劍麟), which makes clothes hangers, seat belts, airbag inflators and safety parts, yesterday reported revenue of NT$293.56 million for last month, down 1.87 percent from a month earlier and 20.05 percent from a year earlier. The company said that clothes hanger sales fell due to fewer working days last month, but auto parts sales increased due to seasonal factors. Total revenue for last year was NT$3.64 billion, up 5.64 percent from 2020, with auto parts accounting for 80 percent of sales and clothes hangers making up the remainder, it said.
MACHINERY
Bright Sheland sales rise
Bright Sheland International Co (旭然國際), which makes filtration products and separation systems under the Filtrafine brand, yesterday reported revenue of NT$58.37 million for last month, up 37.34 percent from a year earlier and posting a monthly record for a second consecutive month. The company said demand for filtering facilities continued to rise as clients in the semiconductor and electronics sectors increased capital expenditure and built new plants. The relocation of plants by clients seeking to diversify risks also helped boost sales, it said. Revenue in the fourth quarter rose 42.91 percent to NT$163.57 million from a year earlier, while revenue for the full year was NT$590.4 million, up 15.96 percent from 2020.
BANKING
TCB Prague office approved
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) has approved Taiwan Cooperative Bank’s (TCB, 合作金庫銀行) application to set up a representative office in Prague, making it the second Taiwanese bank to have a presence in the Czech capital. The representative office would help the bank seek business opportunities and enhance its service in the European market, the commission said in a statement on Friday. The commission approved a similar request by the Export-Import Bank of the Republic of China (中國輸出入銀行) on Nov. 11. Taiwan Cooperative Bank has representative offices in Beijing and Yangon, Myanmar, as well as 13 overseas branches.
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
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