EQUITIES
TAIEX falls 0.62 percent
The TAIEX yesterday closed lower as market sentiment remained cautious due to lingering concerns over moves by central banks worldwide to tighten monetary policy, dealers said. Selling was seen across the board, focusing particularly on transportation and financial shares, while the bellwether electronics sector was somewhat resilient, they said. Bucking the downturn on the TAIEX, biotechnology stocks attracted buying on a spike in domestically transmitted COVID-19 cases, they added. The TAIEX closed down 105.31 points, or 0.62 percent, at 16,898.87. Turnover totaled NT$228.800 billion (US$7.84 billion), with foreign institutional investors selling a net NT$10.42 billion of shares, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. The electronics sector fell 0.11 percent, with the semiconductor sub-index down only 0.08 percent, while the transportation sector fell 2.70 percent and the financial sector lost 2.05 percent.
EQUITIES
Foreign sell-off continues
Foreign investors last week sold a net NT$55.59 billion of local shares after selling a net NT$83.02 billion a week earlier, the Taiwan Stock Exchange said in a statement yesterday. As of Friday, foreign investors had sold NT$608.4 billion of local shares from the beginning of the year, it said. Last week, the top three shares foreign investors sold were United Microelectronics Corp (聯電), Taiwan Business Bank (台灣企銀) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶電腦), while the top three shares they bought were China Airlines Ltd (中華航空), Ta Chen Stainless Pipe Co (大成不銹鋼) and EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空), the exchange said. As of Friday, the market capitalization of shares held by foreign investors was NT$21.6 trillion, or 40.97 percent of total market capitalization, it said.
AIRLINES
Tigerair to sell NFTs
Low-cost carrier Tigerair Taiwan Ltd (台灣虎航) yesterday announced plans to sell non-fungible tokens (NFT) of images of its tiger mascot. In a statement, Tigerair said that the NFTs, which are being produced in cooperation with Taiwan’s largest cryptocurrency trading platform, MaiCoin Ltd (現代財富科技), would go on sale next month. Those who buy the NFTs will get the chance to go on a trip to France to take part in the delivery of an A320neo plane, the airline said. In addition, buyers will also get the right to fly with Tigerair in unoccupied seats as a crew member by paying only the taxes. Tigerair chairman Chen Han-ming (陳漢銘) said that NFTs, a unique cryptographic token that can be associated with reproducible digital files such as photographs, videos and audio, are beginning to be seen as a viable way to sell digital art.
SEMICONDUCTORS
PRC production shrinks
China’s quarterly production of semiconductors shrank for the first time since early 2019 as demand for consumer electronics softened and COVID-19 lockdowns in regions, including Shanghai, disrupted output. Output of integrated circuits dropped 4.2 percent in the first three months of the year as chipmakers reported a steeper decline last month, National Bureau of Statistics data showed. It was the worst quarterly performance since the first quarter of 2019 when the nation’s chip output slumped 8.7 percent. Demand for smartphones, PCs and TVs has been hurt by China’s lockdown measures, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) chairman to Mark Liu (劉德音) said.
Semiconductor business between Taiwan and the US is a “win-win” model for both sides given the high level of complementarity, the government said yesterday responding to tariff threats from US President Donald Trump. Home to the world’s largest contract chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), Taiwan is a key link in the global technology supply chain for companies such as Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp. Trump said on Monday he plans to impose tariffs on imported chips, pharmaceuticals and steel in an effort to get the producers to make them in the US. “Taiwan and the US semiconductor and other technology industries
CHIP WAR: Tariffs on Taiwanese chips would prompt companies to move their factories, but not necessarily to the US, unleashing a ‘global cross-sector tariff war’ US President Donald Trump would “shoot himself in the foot” if he follows through on his recent pledge to impose higher tariffs on Taiwanese and other foreign semiconductors entering the US, analysts said. Trump’s plans to raise tariffs on chips manufactured in Taiwan to as high as 100 percent would backfire, macroeconomist Henry Wu (吳嘉隆) said. He would “shoot himself in the foot,” Wu said on Saturday, as such economic measures would lead Taiwanese chip suppliers to pass on additional costs to their US clients and consumers, and ultimately cause another wave of inflation. Trump has claimed that Taiwan took up to
A start-up in Mexico is trying to help get a handle on one coastal city’s plastic waste problem by converting it into gasoline, diesel and other fuels. With less than 10 percent of the world’s plastics being recycled, Petgas’ idea is that rather than letting discarded plastic become waste, it can become productive again as fuel. Petgas developed a machine in the port city of Boca del Rio that uses pyrolysis, a thermodynamic process that heats plastics in the absence of oxygen, breaking it down to produce gasoline, diesel, kerosene, paraffin and coke. Petgas chief technology officer Carlos Parraguirre Diaz said that in
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