MANUFACTURING
Tong Yang profit surges
Tong Yang Industry Co (東陽實業), which manufactures bumpers and automotive sheet metal, yesterday reported that pretax profit surged 1,500 percent last month from a year earlier to NT$363 million (US$11.38 million), the second-highest monthly figure in the company’s history. In the first nine months of this year, pretax profit expanded 279 percent from the same period last year to NT$2.19 billion, or pretax earnings per share of NT$3.8, the highest for the period. This came as the company’s revenue grew 26.5 percent year-on-year to NT$1.9 billion last month, with cumulative revenue in the first nine months totaling NT$15.97 billion, an 18.8 percent increase from the same period last year. The company said it is accelerating production to cope with a rebound in demand and is gearing up to develop new products to grasp new business opportunities.
COMPONENTS
TXC reports record profit
Quartz crystal components maker TXC Corp (台灣晶技) on Wednesday reported its highest September pretax profit in the company’s history thanks to foreign exchange gains and Apple Inc’s launch of new iPhones. Pretax profit rose 46.5 percent month-on-month and 13 percent year-on-year to NT$441 million last month, TXC said in a regulatory filing. TXC supplies frequency-control crystal components, which are used in networking, mobile communications, mobile computing, automotive applications, lighting and home automation. In the third quarter, pretax profit was NT$1.06 billion, up 3.4 percent quarterly, but down 2.1 percent from a year earlier, the company said. Despite weakening demand, TXC reported cumulative pretax profit of NT$2.895 billion in the first nine months, nearly flat from the same period last year, or pertax earnings per share of NT$9.35, it said.
EMPLOYMENT
Furloughed worker data fall
The number of workers on official furlough programs in Taiwan fell by more than 4,000 as travel agencies brought back staff from unpaid leave ahead of an easing of COVID-19 border controls yesterday. Data released by the Ministry of Labor on Tuesday showed that the number of workers on furlough programs had fallen by 4,714 to 13,336 as of Friday last week from 18,050 on Sept. 30. The number of furloughed workers in the support service sector had dropped by 3,154, or about 35 percent, to 5,817 as of Friday last week, the data showed. Amid rising domestic consumption, the number of furloughed workers in the lodging, and food and beverage industry fell to 953 from 1,567, the data showed. The number of furloughed workers in the transportation and warehousing industry fell to 918 from 1,249, while the manufacturing sector saw the number of workers on unpaid leave fall to 3,355 from 3,434, the data showed.
SELL-OFF: Investors expect tariff-driven volatility as the local boarse reopens today, while analysts say government support and solid fundamentals would steady sentiment Local investors are bracing for a sharp market downturn today as the nation’s financial markets resume trading following a two-day closure for national holidays before the weekend, with sentiment rattled by US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff announcement. Trump’s unveiling of new “reciprocal tariffs” on Wednesday triggered a sell-off in global markets, with the FTSE Taiwan Index Futures — a benchmark for Taiwanese equities traded in Singapore — tumbling 9.2 percent over the past two sessions. Meanwhile, the American depositary receipts (ADRs) of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the most heavily weighted stock on the TAIEX, plunged 13.8 percent in
A wave of stop-loss selling and panic selling hit Taiwan's stock market at its opening today, with the weighted index plunging 2,086 points — a drop of more than 9.7 percent — marking the largest intraday point and percentage loss on record. The index bottomed out at 19,212.02, while futures were locked limit-down, with more than 1,000 stocks hitting their daily drop limit. Three heavyweight stocks — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (Foxconn, 鴻海精密) and MediaTek (聯發科) — hit their limit-down prices as soon as the market opened, falling to NT$848 (US$25.54), NT$138.5 and NT$1,295 respectively. TSMC's
TARIFFS: The global ‘panic atmosphere remains strong,’ and foreign investors have continued to sell their holdings since the start of the year, the Ministry of Finance said The government yesterday authorized the activation of its NT$500 billion (US$15.15 billion) National Stabilization Fund (NSF) to prop up the local stock market after two days of sharp falls in reaction to US President Donald Trump’s new import tariffs. The Ministry of Finance said in a statement after the market close that the steering committee of the fund had been given the go-ahead to intervene in the market to bolster Taiwanese shares in a time of crisis. The fund has been authorized to use its assets “to carry out market stabilization tasks as appropriate to maintain the stability of Taiwan’s
In a small town in Paraguay, a showdown is brewing between traditional producers of yerba mate, a bitter herbal tea popular across South America, and miners of a shinier treasure: gold. A rush for the precious metal is pitting mate growers and indigenous groups against the expanding operations of small-scale miners who, until recently, were their neighbors, not nemeses. “They [the miners] have destroyed everything... The canals, springs, swamps,” said Vidal Britez, president of the Yerba Mate Producers’ Association of the town of Paso Yobai, about 210km east of capital Asuncion. “You can see the pollution from the dead fish.
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