Taiwanese shares rose yesterday as investors responded to an overnight rally in the US triggered by the US Federal Reserve ruling out the possibility of overly aggressive rate hikes later in the year, dealers said.
The bellwether electronics sector attracted buying throughout the session as investors searched for bargains among heavily affected tech heavyweights, while the financial sector came under pressure to cap the upturn on the broader market, they said.
The TAIEX closed up 130.29 points, or 0.79 percent, at 16,696.12. Turnover totaled NT$250.848 billion (US$8.5 billion), with foreign institutional investors buying a net NT$3.83 billion of shares on the main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
Photo: CNA
“The gains on the US markets came as investors felt relieved as the Fed did not appear as hawkish as previously expected,” Hua Nan Securities Co (華南永昌證券) analyst Lu Chin-wei said.
After a two-day policymaking meeting, which concluded overnight, the Fed raised its key interest rates by 50 basis points after a 25 basis point hike in March.
However, Fed Chair Jerome Powell ruled out more aggressive action, saying that the committee was not considering a 75 basis point increase.
“The 50 basis point rate hike at the May meeting had been widely anticipated by the markets worldwide. Now, Powell’s remarks simply prompted investors at home and abroad to buy, and in Taipei, tech heavyweights got a boost from reduced worries over a more aggressive Fed,” Lu said.
The electronics sector rose 1.29 percent and accounted for about 54 percent of yesterday’s total turnover, with the semiconductor subindex up 1.70 percent.
The transportation and steel sectors also rose 0.95 percent and 1.16 percent respectively, but the financial sector underperformed the TAIEX, closing down 1.02 percent.
“Judging from today’s movement, I suggest investors to stay alert over the weakness in the financial sector. The interest rate hike leads had been largely reflected in financial stocks’ recent gains,” Lu said. “The local main board is likely to rebound further, but if the TAIEX fails to close above 17,000 points, the gains would not be strong enough to lead the market to return to an uptrend at a time of a rate hike cycle.”
INFRINGEMENT: The investigation comes after a complaint from Vicor Corp, with the company seeking a limited exclusion order as well as cease-and-desist orders, the ITA said The US International Trade Commission (USITC) has launched a Section 337 investigation naming Taiwanese technology companies, including Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海), Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) and Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), as respondents. The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) pledged assistance if needed. The USITC said on Friday in a statement that it had voted to institute an investigation under Section 337 of the US Tariff Act of 1930 into certain vertical power delivery systems, related components and computing devices incorporating such systems. The investigation covers 20 companies from Taiwan, China, Germany and the US, the commission said, adding that it
IN GOOD FAITH: Lai said he appreciates Micron’s commitment to Taiwan and that it would continue expanding its investment in the country, while also working with labor President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday called for US memory maker Micron Technology Inc and its workers to negotiate “sincerely” ahead of a possible strike by the company’s union in Taiwan. Last week, a Taiwanese union representing workers at Micron said it had secured authorization from its members to strike over a dispute concerning the company’s bonus scheme, escalating a labor conflict at the chipmaker’s largest manufacturing hub. Micron employs about 15,000 people in Taiwan and has said it invested more than NT$1.6 trillion (US$49.6 billion) in the country. Speaking in Taichung at the opening of a new Micron advanced assembly and testing facility,
A man charged along with Super Micro Computer Inc co-founder Yih-Shyan “Wally” Liaw (廖益賢) of conspiring to send cutting-edge chips to China in violation of US export controls pleaded guilty, court documents said. Ting-Wei “Willy” Sun (孫廷瑋), a former outside contractor described by US authorities as a “fixer” who allegedly aided in the sales, pleaded guilty on Thursday at a hearing in federal court in New York as part of an agreement with prosecutors, court filings showed. Prosecutors claimed the men were part of a scheme to send Nvidia Corp-powered servers to an unnamed Southeast Asian company and then divert them to
Microsoft Corp chief executive officer Satya Nadella said companies should treat powerful artificial intelligence (AI) models as potential insider threats, assume they could be compromised and create an “emergency brake” system to prevent agentic models from going rogue. Nadella said that those deploying advanced AI should not rely on assurances from model makers. “We must assume a model is compromised and contain it from the start,” Nadella wrote on Saturday in a post on X. “Think of it like an emergency brake. An authorized person should always be able to pause or shut down a model mid-task.” The statement comes as Anthropic PBC
RSS