EQUITIES
Investors pocket profits
The TAIEX closed slightly lower yesterday after initial gains were erased amid lingering caution caused by the US Federal Reserve’s hawkish outlook. The bellwether electronics sector gave up an earlier upturn as fears of further volatility among tech stocks on the US markets prompted investors to lock in their profits. The TAIEX closed down 26.70 points, or 0.18 percent, at 15,069.19. Turnover totaled NT$178.284 billion (US$5.89 billion), with foreign institutional investors selling a net NT$10.59 billion of shares on the main board after a net sell of NT$16.76 billion on Tuesday, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
ELECTRONICS
Weak demand hits Innolux
Flat-panel maker Innolux Corp (群創) has encouraged employees to take an extra five days off over the Mid-Autumn Festival and Double Ten National Day holidays, the company said in a statement yesterday. Innolux aims to reduce its factory utilization rate to as low as 50 percent during the second half of this year in response to weak customer demand, the company said. Production line employees are to work a flexible rotation scheme based on adjustments to the usage of the production line, it said. The company’s statement came after an employee wrote to the Chinese-language Apple Daily, accusing the company of forcing workers to take annual leave.
STEELMAKERS
CSC’s pre-tax income dives
China Steel Corp (CSC, 中鋼) said its pre-tax income plummeted 39 percent to NT$2.61 billion last month from NT$4.29 billion in June, due to a reduction in carbon steel sales and a lower gross margin. The Kaohsiung-based firm sold 683,834 tonnes of steel last month, down 15.26 percent from 806,975 tonnes in June, it said in a statement released on Tuesday. During the first seven months of this year, the steelmaker accumulated NT$31.51 billion in pre-tax income, down 29 percent from NT$44.29 billion during the same period last year. However, revenue rose 13 percent year-on-year from NT$255.15 billion to NT$288 billion during the January-to-July period, it said.
BROKERAGES
Firms’ net income up 74%
Securities firms in Taiwan reported combined net income of NT$5.202 billion last month, up 73.92 percent from June, as a decline in brokerage fee income was offset by increases in dealers’ trading income and underwriting income, the Taiwan Stock Exchange said on Monday. The exchange attributed the decline in fee income to a drop in securities transactions last month, when trading fell 4.96 percent month-on-month to NT$4.832 trillion. In the first seven months of this year, the accumulated net income of securities firms was NT$23.655 billion, down 65.37 percent from the same period last year.
BROKERAGES
China Merchants IPOs halted
Chinese bourses have stopped processing more than 20 initial public offering (IPO) plans sponsored by China Merchants Securities Co (招商證券) following an investigation into the broker, exchange disclosures showed. Since Friday last week, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange has suspended 15 IPO plans for its ChiNext board, while the Shanghai exchange has paused five IPO plans for its STAR Market. Three other IPOs targeting the Beijing Stock Exchange were also affected. The bourses attributed the halts to an investigation by authorities into China Merchants Securities’ poor due diligence and rule contraventions.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary
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