EQUITIES
TAIEX rises due to TSMC
The TAIEX closed higher yesterday as contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) rose for a third consecutive session. Dealers attributed the main board’s rally from an initial low to investors’ positive response to the US markets rebounding from earlier overnight losses. The TAIEX closed up 87.19 points, or 0.48 percent, at 18,375.40. Turnover totaled NT$284.890 billion (US$10.3 billion), with foreign institutional investors buying a net NT$12.75 billion of shares on the main board. TSMC rose 1.38 percent to close at NT$660. Due to its heavy weighting of about 30 percent of the main board, TSMC’s gains contributed 75 points to the TAIEX’s rise.
STEELMAKERS
Feng Hsin revenue up 52%
Steelmaker Feng Hsin Steel Co (豐興) yesterday posted NT$553 million in pretax income for last month, surging 52 percent from NT$364 million the previous year, the company said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. That represented a monthly increase of 11.49 percent from NT$496 million, the company said. For the full year last year, pretax income jumped 56 percent to NT$5.04 billion, from NT$3.24 billion in 2020, it said. Consolidated revenue totaled NT$38.36 billion last year, up 40.52 percent from NT$27.3 billion a year earlier, it added.
ELECTRONICS
Sercomm station approved
Telecom equipment supplier Sercomm Corp (中磊) said its new 5G millimeter-wave (mmWave) small cell base station has obtained certification from the National Communications Commission, paving the way the product to be shipped to local telecoms. Sercomm beat local rivals in securing the certification, it said on Tuesday. Last year, the company obtained similar certification from the Federal Communications Commission for its 5G mmWave small cell base station, helping it to tap into the US market.
CHINA
Lending lower than forecast
New bank lending last month fell more than expected from the previous month, but lending for the whole of last year set a record, as the central bank maintained policy support to cushion the slowing economy. Banks last month extended 1.13 trillion yuan (US$177.51 billion) in new yuan loans, down from 1.27 trillion yuan in November and short of analysts’ expectations, data released yesterday by the People’s Bank of China showed. However, new bank lending hit a record 19.95 trillion yuan for the year, up 1.6 percent from 19.63 trillion yuan in 2020, the previous record.
FOREIGN EXCHANGE
Asian currencies could dip
Goldman Sachs Group Inc has warned that the New Taiwan dollar, South Korean won and Malaysian ringgit could weaken if growth stocks continue to slide. The underperformance of growth stocks coincides with weaker tech-centric emerging market currencies when risk sentiment is less favorable, Karen Reichgott Fishman, Goldman Sachs’ New York-based strategist, wrote in a note. The outlook for tighter monetary policy in the US and higher US Treasury yields have been weighing on technology shares globally, prompting a rotation from growth to value stocks. Asian currencies are under pressure as prospects of quicker rate hikes in the US bolster the greenback. The ringgit is Asia’s second worst-performing currency so far this year, with a loss of 0.4 percent, while the won is down 0.1 percent and the NT dollar is up 0.1 percent.
SEMICONDUCTOR SERVICES: A company executive said that Taiwanese firms must think about how to participate in global supply chains and lift their competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it expects to launch its first multifunctional service center in Pingtung County in the middle of 2027, in a bid to foster a resilient high-tech facility construction ecosystem. TSMC broached the idea of creating a center two or three years ago when it started building new manufacturing capacity in the US and Japan, the company said. The center, dubbed an “ecosystem park,” would assist local manufacturing facility construction partners to upgrade their capabilities and secure more deals from other global chipmakers such as Intel Corp, Micron Technology Inc and Infineon Technologies AG, TSMC said. It
NO BREAKTHROUGH? More substantial ‘deliverables,’ such as tariff reductions, would likely be saved for a meeting between Trump and Xi later this year, a trade expert said China launched two probes targeting the US semiconductor sector on Saturday ahead of talks between the two nations in Spain this week on trade, national security and the ownership of social media platform TikTok. China’s Ministry of Commerce announced an anti-dumping investigation into certain analog integrated circuits (ICs) imported from the US. The investigation is to target some commodity interface ICs and gate driver ICs, which are commonly made by US companies such as Texas Instruments Inc and ON Semiconductor Corp. The ministry also announced an anti-discrimination probe into US measures against China’s chip sector. US measures such as export curbs and tariffs
The US on Friday penalized two Chinese firms that acquired US chipmaking equipment for China’s top chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯國際), including them among 32 entities that were added to the US Department of Commerce’s restricted trade list, a US government posting showed. Twenty-three of the 32 are in China. GMC Semiconductor Technology (Wuxi) Co (吉姆西半導體科技) and Jicun Semiconductor Technology (Shanghai) Co (吉存半導體科技) were placed on the list, formally known as the Entity List, for acquiring equipment for SMIC Northern Integrated Circuit Manufacturing (Beijing) Corp (中芯北方積體電路) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International (Beijing) Corp (中芯北京), the US Federal Register posting said. The
India’s ban of online money-based games could drive addicts to unregulated apps and offshore platforms that pose new financial and social risks, fantasy-sports gaming experts say. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government banned real-money online games late last month, citing financial losses and addiction, leading to a shutdown of many apps offering paid fantasy cricket, rummy and poker games. “Many will move to offshore platforms, because of the addictive nature — they will find alternate means to get that dopamine hit,” said Viren Hemrajani, a Mumbai-based fantasy cricket analyst. “It [also] leads to fraud and scams, because everything is now
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