JAPAN
Nikkei up 102% from 2020
The Nikkei 225 has doubled since its COVID-19 pandemic low as investors continue to rush into one of this year’s biggest stock rallies. The blue-chip equity gauge yesterday rose 1.5 percent, taking the gain from its March 2020 low to 102 percent. That is the best in the Asia-Pacific region in that span, after the more than 120 percent surge in India’s SENSEX. Stocks have soared in Tokyo this year on drivers including signs of stable inflation, corporate governance reforms and an inflow of foreign investment. These have supplemented tailwinds from the Bank of Japan’s easy-money policy and benefits from a weak yen for the nation’s exporters.
UNITED KINGDOM
GDP up after March drop
The economy bounced back in April as robust growth in the retail and creative industries sectors offset a slowdown in construction and manufacturing. GDP rose 0.2 percent after a 0.3 percent decline in March, when heavy rains and strikes kept consumers at home, the Office for National Statistics said yesterday. The figures left the economy 0.3 percent bigger than before COVID-19 hit in 2020. The positive start to the second quarter reduces the risk of recession for now. However, bets that the Bank of England keeps raising interest rates through the summer to tame inflation are adding to the prospect of a downturn later in the year.
ENERGY
Oil demand peak in sight
Global oil demand could peak before the end of this decade as the energy crisis has accelerated the transition to cleaner technologies, the International Energy Agency said yesterday. The Paris-based agency forecast that annual demand growth would slow sharply over the next five years, from 2.4 million barrels per day this year to 400,000 barrels per day in 2028. “The shift to a clean energy economy is picking up pace, with a peak in global oil demand in sight before the end of this decade,” International Energy Agency executive director Fatih Birol said in a statement.
SEMICONDUCTORS
Samsung adds to staff leave
Samsung Electronics Co, the world’s biggest memorychip maker, is giving staff in South Korea one Friday off each month in a bid to retain talent that increasingly values flexible work. Starting next week, non-factory, full-time staff can take the day off in the period they get paychecks — usually the week of the 21st, a company spokesperson said yesterday. The arrangements are aimed at retaining talent, particularly among younger workers who value work-life balance. Millenials and Generation Z make up about three-quarters of Samsung’s workforce globally, a company report said last year.
GAMING
Judge blocks Microsoft deal
Microsoft Corp’s planned US$69 billion purchase of video game company Activision Blizzard Inc was blocked by a federal judge on Tuesday, giving more time for an antitrust review of the deal. US District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley in San Francisco ruled in support of a temporary restraining order sought by the US Federal Trade Commission that would stop Microsoft from closing the deal. The judge said her order temporarily blocking the deal “is necessary to maintain the status quo” while the commission’s legal cases against it are still pending.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said that its investment plan in Arizona is going according to schedule, following a local media report claiming that the company is planning to break ground on its third wafer fab in the US in June. In a statement, TSMC said it does not comment on market speculation, but that its investments in Arizona are proceeding well. TSMC is investing more than US$65 billion in Arizona to build three advanced wafer fabs. The first one has started production using the 4-nanometer (nm) process, while the second one would start mass production using the
A TAIWAN DEAL: TSMC is in early talks to fully operate Intel’s US semiconductor factories in a deal first raised by Trump officials, but Intel’s interest is uncertain Broadcom Inc has had informal talks with its advisers about making a bid for Intel Corp’s chip-design and marketing business, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Nothing has been submitted to Intel and Broadcom could decide not to pursue a deal, according to the Journal. Bloomberg News earlier reported that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is in early talks for a controlling stake in Intel’s factories at the request of officials at US President Donald Trump’s administration, as the president looks to boost US manufacturing and maintain the country’s leadership in critical technologies. Trump officials raised the
‘SILVER LINING’: Although the news caused TSMC to fall on the local market, an analyst said that as tariffs are not set to go into effect until April, there is still time for negotiations US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he would likely impose tariffs on semiconductor, automobile and pharmaceutical imports of about 25 percent, with an announcement coming as soon as April 2 in a move that would represent a dramatic widening of the US leader’s trade war. “I probably will tell you that on April 2, but it’ll be in the neighborhood of 25 percent,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club when asked about his plan for auto tariffs. Asked about similar levies on pharmaceutical drugs and semiconductors, the president said that “it’ll be 25 percent and higher, and it’ll
CHIP BOOM: Revenue for the semiconductor industry is set to reach US$1 trillion by 2032, opening up opportunities for the chip pacakging and testing company, it said ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控), the world’s largest provider of outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) services, yesterday launched a new advanced manufacturing facility in Penang, Malaysia, aiming to meet growing demand for emerging technologies such as generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The US$300 million facility is a critical step in expanding ASE’s global footprint, offering an alternative for customers from the US, Europe, Japan, South Korea and China to assemble and test chips outside of Taiwan amid efforts to diversify supply chains. The plant, the company’s fifth in Malaysia, is part of a strategic expansion plan that would more than triple
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