EQUITIES
TAIEX ends flat
Local shares yesterday closed flat after giving up earlier gains as the bellwether electronics sector came under pressure, dragging down the broader market, dealers said. While select old-economy stocks, in particular in the transportation and steel sectors, as well as the financial sector, remained strong throughout the session, market sentiment was cautious over the ongoing military conflict between Russia and Ukraine, they said. The TAIEX ended down 1.7 points at 17,263.04 after moving between 17,217.58 and 17,363.04. Turnover was NT$286.16 billion (US$10.03 billion), with foreign institutional investors selling a net NT$16.15 billion of shares.
EQUITIES
Foreign net sales surge
Foreign investors last week sold a net NT$180.98 billion of local shares after selling NT$63.44 billion a week earlier, the Taiwan Stock Exchange said in a statement yesterday. As of Friday, foreign investors had sold NT$439.44 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), United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) and Yuanta Financial Holding Co (元大金控), while the top three shares they bought were Innolux Corp (群創), AU Optronics Corp (友達光電) and Wisdom Marine Lines Co (慧洋海運), the exchange said. The market cap of shares held by foreign investors was NT$22.35 trillion, or 41.75 percent of total market cap, it said.
ENERGY
Hsing Mien to invest NT$800m
Hsing Mien Industry Co (信銘工業) plans to invest NT$800 million to expand its manufacturing facilities in Taiwan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said on Friday, as it approved the industrial gas provider’s application to join the government’s “Invest in Taiwan” initiative. The company plans to expand capacity at a plant at the Ping Nan Industrial Park (屏南工業區) in Pingtung County and increase production lines at a plant in Kaohsiung’s Dafa Industrial Park (大發工業區), the ministry said. Hsing Mien provides a wide range of industrial bulk gas and liquid gas used in different industrial applications, with customers including semiconductor companies and other high-tech firms.
TAXES
Receipt lottery raises wins
The National Taxation Administration on Friday said it would increase the number of NT$500 prize-winning receipts for its Cloud Uniform Invoice lottery to encourage the use of cloud invoices. Starting with the January-February draw, the number of NT$500 prize winners would be increased from 1 million to 1.65 million. The number of prize-winning receipts for the NT$1 million, NT$2,000 and NT$800 prizes is to remain unchanged at 30, 16,000 and 100,000 respectively, the agency said.
ELECTRONICS
Foxconn Industrial profit up
Foxconn Industrial Internet Co (富士康工業互聯網), Precision Industry Co’s (鴻海精密) Shanghai-listed subsidiary that specializes in industrial Internet-of-Things (IIoT) solutions, yesterday reported that net profit last year grew 14.77 percent from a year earlier to 20.01 billion yuan (US$3.15 billion), it said in a filing with the Shanghai Stock Exchange. That translated into earnings per share of 1.01 yuan, up from 0.88 yuan. Revenue rose 1.8 percent year-on-year to a record high 439.56 billion yuan. Foxconn Industrial attributed the growth to robust demand for cloud computing, IIoT, articificial intelligence and 5G-related applications.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said that its investment plan in Arizona is going according to schedule, following a local media report claiming that the company is planning to break ground on its third wafer fab in the US in June. In a statement, TSMC said it does not comment on market speculation, but that its investments in Arizona are proceeding well. TSMC is investing more than US$65 billion in Arizona to build three advanced wafer fabs. The first one has started production using the 4-nanometer (nm) process, while the second one would start mass production using the
A TAIWAN DEAL: TSMC is in early talks to fully operate Intel’s US semiconductor factories in a deal first raised by Trump officials, but Intel’s interest is uncertain Broadcom Inc has had informal talks with its advisers about making a bid for Intel Corp’s chip-design and marketing business, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Nothing has been submitted to Intel and Broadcom could decide not to pursue a deal, according to the Journal. Bloomberg News earlier reported that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is in early talks for a controlling stake in Intel’s factories at the request of officials at US President Donald Trump’s administration, as the president looks to boost US manufacturing and maintain the country’s leadership in critical technologies. Trump officials raised the
‘SILVER LINING’: Although the news caused TSMC to fall on the local market, an analyst said that as tariffs are not set to go into effect until April, there is still time for negotiations US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he would likely impose tariffs on semiconductor, automobile and pharmaceutical imports of about 25 percent, with an announcement coming as soon as April 2 in a move that would represent a dramatic widening of the US leader’s trade war. “I probably will tell you that on April 2, but it’ll be in the neighborhood of 25 percent,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club when asked about his plan for auto tariffs. Asked about similar levies on pharmaceutical drugs and semiconductors, the president said that “it’ll be 25 percent and higher, and it’ll
CHIP BOOM: Revenue for the semiconductor industry is set to reach US$1 trillion by 2032, opening up opportunities for the chip pacakging and testing company, it said ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控), the world’s largest provider of outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) services, yesterday launched a new advanced manufacturing facility in Penang, Malaysia, aiming to meet growing demand for emerging technologies such as generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The US$300 million facility is a critical step in expanding ASE’s global footprint, offering an alternative for customers from the US, Europe, Japan, South Korea and China to assemble and test chips outside of Taiwan amid efforts to diversify supply chains. The plant, the company’s fifth in Malaysia, is part of a strategic expansion plan that would more than triple
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