EQUITIES
Shares rise slightly
Shares closed slightly higher yesterday as the electronics sector gave up earlier gains with many investors reluctant to chase prices despite initial increases, dealers said. Buying switched to old economy stocks, in particular the transportation sector, which served as an anchor stabilizing the broader market amid lingering concerns over further volatility on global markets, they said. The TAIEX closed up 11.56 points, or 0.07 percent, at 16,156.41. Turnover totaled NT$232.94 billion (US$7.86 billion), with foreign institutional investors buying a net NT$2.03 billion of shares on the main board. The electronics sector fell 0.41 percent, with the semiconductor sub-index down 0.51 percent, while the transportation sector soared 6.43 percent and the financial sector rose 0.05 percent.
EQUITIES
Foreigners buy NT$2.18bn
Foreign investors last week bought a net NT$2.18 billion of local shares after selling a net NT$45.09 billion a week earlier, the Taiwan Stock Exchange said in a statement yesterday. As of Friday, foreign investors had sold NT$780.76 billion of local shares since the beginning of the year, the exchange said. Last week, the top three shares bought by foreign investors were United Microelectronics Corp (聯電), Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Innolux Corp (群創光電), while the top three shares sold by foreign investors were Shin Kong Financial Holding Co (新光金控), China Steel Corp (中鋼) and E.Sun Financial Holding Co (玉山金控), it added. As of Friday, the market capitalization of shares held by foreign investors was NT$20.45 trillion, or 40.81 percent of total market capitalization, it said.
EQUITIES
Intraday odd-lot trading rises
The average daily amount of trades through the intraday odd-lot trading mechanism totaled NT$2.77 billion for the first four months, up 60 percent from a year earlier, the Financial Supervisory Commission said on Thursday. Although it was just a fraction of an average daily amount of NT$188 billion of all trades in the stock market, the growth indicated that the mechanism gained acceptance among investors, the commission said. The number of odd-lot traders grew to 1.21 million as of the end of last month, up from 320,000 before the intraday trading platform kicked off. About 29 percent are younger than 30. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) shares were most favored by odd-lot traders, accounting for 44 percent of all shares traded under the mechanism, while MediaTek Inc (聯發科) was in second place with a market share of 7 percent, the commission’s data showed.
INSURANCE
FWD IPO approved
FWD Group Holdings Ltd (富衛集團), the Asian insurer backed by Hong Kong billionaire Richard Li (李澤楷), has won approval for its planned initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong, a person with knowledge of the matter said. The company received approval following a hearing on Thursday with the Hong Kong bourse’s listing committee, the person said. The company has not decided when to launch the IPO, they added. The insurer is seeking to raise about US$1 billion in the offering, Bloomberg News has reported. FWD filed an application for the first-time share sale in February, after deciding to switch its listing venue from the US, where it had filed for an IPO that could have raised as much as US$3 billion.
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
Japan intends to closely monitor the impact on its currency of US President Donald Trump’s new tariffs and is worried about the international fallout from the trade imposts, Japanese Minister of Finance Katsunobu Kato said. “We need to carefully see how the exchange rate and other factors will be affected and what form US monetary policy will take in the future,” Kato said yesterday in an interview with Fuji Television. Japan is very concerned about how the tariffs might impact the global economy, he added. Kato spoke as nations and firms brace for potential repercussions after Trump unleashed the first salvo of
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