MARKETS
Foreign sell-off tapers
Foreign investors last week sold a net NT$63.44 billion (US$2.25 billion) of local shares after selling NT$166.54 billion a week earlier, the Taiwan Stock Exchange said in a statement yesterday. As of Friday, foreign investors had sold NT$258.46 billion of local shares from the beginning of the year, it said. Last week, the top three shares foreign investors sold were Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), Shin Kong Financial Holding Co (新光金控) and China Development Financial Holding Corp (中華開發金控), while the top three were CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控), China Steel Corp (中鋼) and Evergreen Marine Corp (長榮海運), the exchange said. The market capitalization of shares held by foreign investors was NT$23.23 trillion, or 42.28 percent of total market capitalization, it said.
MEMORYCHIPS
Macronix posts strong gains
Memorychip maker Macronix International Co (旺宏電子) yesterday reported consolidated revenue of NT$3.62 billion for last month, up 20.27 percent from a year ago, on strong market demand. While last month’s figure fell 2.54 percent from January, it was still the highest February level in the company’s history, the company said. Cumulative revenue in the first two months of the year totaled NT$7.34 billion, up 21.97 percent from NT$6.02 billion in the same period last year. Macronix is a leading producer of nonvolatile memory products such as ROM and NOR flash, which are used in a variety of electronic devices. The company said it remains positive about this year’s outlook, as the supply of NOR flash memorychips has become tight and the price should continue to rise.
COMPUTERS
Advantech ratio stays high
Industrial computer manufacturer Advantech Co (研華) yesterday said its book-to-bill ratio remained high at 1.31 percent last month, slightly lower than 1.38 percent in the January-February period, thanks to improving product sales amid a global demand recovery. Consolidated sales were NT$4.67 billion last month, up 29.13 percent from NT$3.62 billion a year ago. Accumulated sales in the first two months totaled NT$10.06 billion, up 23.71 percent year-on-year, the company said in a statement. By geographic region, North America and Europe registered sales growth of 33 percent and 39 percent respectively, while emerging markets registered 44 percent during the two-month period, it said. While the company’s embedded Internet of Things (IoT) group, applied computing group and service-IoT group reported strong sales in the first two months, the cloud-IoT group saw sales slightly decline due to component shortages and a high comparison base last year, it added.
COSMETICS
Chlitina reports flat revenue
Chlitina Holding Ltd (麗豐), which makes and sells cosmetics and skincare products, yesterday said revenue last month was flat from a year ago at NT$266.33 million, as the Lunar New Year holiday cut the number of working days, while sales at its beauty salon franchises in China’s Guangdong Province and Shanghai city were affected by COVID-19 flare-ups. Cumulative revenue in the first two months of this year fell 9.97 percent to NT$623.31 million from a year earlier, the company said. Worldwide, the company operates 4,994 franchisees, including 4,753 in China, the company said. With marketing campaigns and promotional activities beginning this month, the company said it expects growth momentum to emerge in the first half of this year.
TRADE WAR: Tariffs should also apply to any goods that pass through the new Beijing-funded port in Chancay, Peru, an adviser to US president-elect Donald Trump said A veteran adviser to US president-elect Donald Trump is proposing that the 60 percent tariffs that Trump vowed to impose on Chinese goods also apply to goods from any country that pass through a new port that Beijing has built in Peru. The duties should apply to goods from China or countries in South America that pass through the new deep-water port Chancay, a town 60km north of Lima, said Mauricio Claver-Carone, an adviser to the Trump transition team who served as senior director for the western hemisphere on the White House National Security Council in his first administration. “Any product going
TECH SECURITY: The deal assures that ‘some of the most sought-after technology on the planet’ returns to the US, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said The administration of US President Joe Biden finalized its CHIPS Act incentive awards for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), marking a major milestone for a program meant to bring semiconductor production back to US soil. TSMC would get US$6.6 billion in grants as part of the contract, the US Department of Commerce said in a statement yesterday. Though the amount was disclosed earlier this year as part of a preliminary agreement, the deal is now legally binding — making it the first major CHIPS Act award to reach this stage. The chipmaker, which is also taking up to US$5 billion
High above the sparkling surface of the Athens coastline, the cranes for building the 50-floor luxury tower centerpiece of Greece’s future “smart city” look out over the Saronic Gulf. At their feet, construction machinery stirs up dust. Its backers say the 8 billion euro (US$8.43 billion) project financed by private funds is a symbol of Greece’s renaissance after the years of financial stagnation that saw investors flee the country. However, critics see it more as a future “ghetto for the rich.” It is hard to imagine that 10km from the Acropolis, a new city “three times the size of Monaco”
STRUGGLING BUSINESS: South Korea’s biggest company and semiconductor manufacturer’s buyback fuels concerns that it could be missing out on the AI boom Samsung Electronics Co plans to buy back about 10 trillion won (US$7.2 billion) of its own stock over the next year, putting in motion one of the larger shareholder return programs in its history. South Korea’s biggest company would repurchase the stock in stages over the coming 12 months, it said in a regulatory filing on Friday. As a first step, it would buy back about 3 trillion won of paper starting today up until February next year, all of which it would cancel. The board would deliberate on how best to effect the remaining 7 trillion won of buybacks. The move
RSS