INVESTMENT
Foreign share sales dive
Foreign investors last week sold a net NT$22.98 billion (US$776.04 million) in local shares after selling a net NT$107.81 billion a week earlier, the Taiwan Stock Exchange said in a statement yesterday. As of Friday, foreign investors had sold NT$913.014 billion in local shares since the beginning of the year, the exchange said. The top three shares sold by foreign investors last week were United Microelectronics Corp (聯電), China Steel Corp (中鋼) and Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp (陽明海運), while the top three shares bought by foreign investors were Innolux Corp (群創光電), Mega Financial Holding Co (兆豐金控) and First Financial Holding Co (第一金控), it said. As of Friday, the market capitalization of shares held by foreign investors was NT$19.08 trillion, or 40.12 percent of total market capitalization, it said.
RESTAURANTS
Thai chain optimistic
TTFB Co Ltd (瓦城泰統集團) yesterday gave an upbeat outlook for the second half of this year, as the number of local COVID-19 infections drop, domestic demand recovery expectations rise, and the food and beverage industry enters its high season. The company aims to boost its food delivery platform, integrate online and offline services, and leverage its strength in procurement to maximize profits and generate better returns for shareholders, the nation’s largest Thai and full-service restaurant chain operator said in a statement. TTFB shareholders yesterday approved the company’s plan to distribute a dividend of NT$7.15 per share, which represents a payout ratio of 101 percent based on earnings per share of NT$7.04 last year. The company made record earnings per share of NT$15.95 in 2020. As of the end of last month, the company operated 135 stores in Taiwan and four in China, it said.
ECONOMY
Tech demand boosts sales
Sales in the wholesale sector increased 7.9 percent year-on-year to NT$1.08 trillion last month, a record high for May, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said on Thursday. That came as growing demand for new technology applications and rising raw material prices pushed up wholesale machinery equipment sales 12.3 percent and construction materials 3.9 percent last month, while sales of pharmaceutical and cosmetic products jumped 50 percent, as hospitals and pharmacies increased their stocks, the ministry said in a statement. In the first five months, total wholesale sales increased 9.8 percent to NT$5.31 trillion, the highest for the five-month period on record, ministry data showed.
INSURANCE
Firms fined for breaches
The Financial Supervisory Commission on Thursday fined Taishin International Bank (台新銀行) NT$3 million and the Taiwan branch of Cardif Assurance Vie (法國巴黎人壽) NT$1.2 million, as the two firms contravened the Insurance Act (保險法) by failing to correctly inform their clients about purchases of investment-linked insurance policies. The commission said Taishn Bank’s agents encouraged three senior citizens to terminate their old insurance policies and use the surrender value to buy new investment-linked insurance products offered by Cardif Assurance. However, the bank pushed the transactions inappropriately by encouraging clients to terminate policies in advance and did not evaluate whether the new products fit the clients’ risk appetite, while the life insurer failed to examine the clients’ sources of funds for the new products, it said.
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
VERTICAL INTEGRATION: The US fabless company’s acquisition of the data center manufacturer would not affect market competition, the Fair Trade Commission said The Fair Trade Commission has approved Advanced Micro Devices Inc’s (AMD) bid to fully acquire ZT International Group Inc for US$4.9 billion, saying it would not hamper market competition. As AMD is a fabless company that designs central processing units (CPUs) used in consumer electronics and servers, while ZT is a data center manufacturer, the vertical integration would not affect market competition, the commission said in a statement yesterday. ZT counts hyperscalers such as Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc and Google among its major clients and plays a minor role in deciding the specifications of data centers, given the strong bargaining power of
TARIFF SURGE: The strong performance could be attributed to the growing artificial intelligence device market and mass orders ahead of potential US tariffs, analysts said The combined revenue of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange for the whole of last year totaled NT$44.66 trillion (US$1.35 trillion), up 12.8 percent year-on-year and hit a record high, data compiled by investment consulting firm CMoney showed on Saturday. The result came after listed firms reported a 23.92 percent annual increase in combined revenue for last month at NT$4.1 trillion, the second-highest for the month of December on record, and posted a 15.63 percent rise in combined revenue for the December quarter at NT$12.25 billion, the highest quarterly figure ever, the data showed. Analysts attributed the
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