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Technology Stocks : Alliance Semiconductor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jibacoa who wrote (9106)	1/12/2001 5:08:02 PM
From: DJBEINO	Respond to of 9582

alsc closed @ 15 5/8 up 5/8 vol 1m. up 3 9/16 for the week. up 5 days in a row...

To: Jibacoa who wrote (9106)	1/12/2001 5:08:02 PM
From: DJBEINO	Respond to of 9582

Taiwan Stocks Expected to Go up Before Lunar New Year TAIPEI, Jan 12 (AFP) - Taiwan share prices are expected to add to recent gains next week before the Chinese Lunar New Year holidays amid continuing positive sentiment, dealers said. "There is room for futher upturns as many signs indicate the market is getting better and better," said Wu Hui-chen, fund manager with China Securities Investment Trust Corp. The market should also benefit from the traditional rally before the Lunar New Year festival, she said. Ben Lee, senior analyst at Nomura Securities in Taipei said anticipation of another rate cut by the US Federal Reserve later this month is boosting sentiment. "Investors are getting numbed to negative factors," despite profit warnings reported by US companies, Lee said. However, uncertainties over the ruling by the Council of Grand Justices next week on whether the cabinet's decision to scrap a 5.6 billion US dollar nuclear power plant is unconstitutional may cast cloud over the market, he added. The council was expected to rule on the case on Monday afternoon. Premier Chang Chun-hsiung in October announced construction of the partially built power plant would be halted even though the project had been approved by the parliament during the previous administration. Lee expected the benchmark index to move between 5,000 and 5,500 points next week. Over the week to Friday, the Taiwan Stock Exchange weighted price index rose 43.87 points or 0.8 percent to close at 5,339.40. The index has gone up 600.31 points or 12.7 percent this year. Taiwan's stock market will close from January 19 to 28 for the Lunar New Year festival. +++++++++= Taiwan Pres: Won't Give Up On Improving Ties With China TAIPEI (AP)--Taiwan won't allow a lack of goodwill from China to discourage efforts to improve relations with the island's longtime rival, the Taiwanese president Friday told the top U.S. liaison to Taiwan.

To: Jibacoa who wrote (9106)	1/15/2001 2:26:39 AM
From: DJBEINO	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9582

ALSC should benefit from lower wafer prices: ++++++++++++ UMC decides to decrease prices for some customers SLOWDOWN: As semiconductor demand wanes, Taiwan's second-largest chipmaker has decided to offer its customers discounts on a `case-by-case basis' STAFF WRITER, WITH BLOOMBERG Taiwan's chipmakers are lowering prices as world demand slows, an executive of the nation's No. 2 make-to-order semiconductor company said yesterday. ``We are offering product discounts on a case-by-case basis,'' said Peter Chang (±i±R¼w), president of United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, Áp¹q). "Demand for semiconductors is slowing, and we can see that prices were starting to loosen up in the second and third quarters." As UMC's customer and those of its rivals such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, ¥x¿n¹q) reduce demand, the chipmakers are looking for ways to keep their multibillion-dollar factories running at full capacity and shore up profits. "I expect that discounts will stimulate demand," said Daniel Heyler, an analyst with Merrill Lynch in Taipei. "The price discounts are for extra quantity beyond what customers expect to buy." Prices of high-end products will fall first, UMC's Chang said. Analysts are lowering their expectations for the company. "We've cut our sales forecast for UMC in the first-quarter from the fourth quarter 2000 by 17 percent to NT$16.4 billion" because customer inventory correction is affecting orders, Heyler said. "We could still see pricing pressure on their products and official cuts in capital expenditure." TSMC said that its factory utilization rate will probably fall below 100 percent during the first quarter this year. TSMC spokesman Tzeng Zing-hao (´¿®Êµq) declined to comment on whether the company is cutting prices for its products. UMC's factories will be running at 85 percent of capacity during this quarter as customers eliminate inventory backlogs, Chang said. "Their optimistic forecasts were wrong," he said. The discounts follow more than a year of rising prices for the products TSMC and UMC make for such customers as Intel Corp and Motorola Inc. In its most recent earnings report, UMC said that the average selling price for its silicon wafers rose to about US$1,475 in the third quarter from US$1,275 in the first quarter last year. Silicon wafers are the material from which chips are cut and packaged. Meanwhile, ABN Amro Asia has assigned a "buy" investment rating for both stocks of TSMC and UMC, citing improved utilization rates in the two wafer foundries. The Holland-based securities house said the utilization rate at TSMC in the second quarter of the year will be higher than that in the first quarter because the chipmaker is likely to win a contract for supplying digital signal processors to Texas Instruments. The processors are the major components for mobile phones and the ground stations for the wireless telecommunications devices. The global market for digital signal processors is expected to hit US$8 billion this year, compared to US$6.4 billion recorded in 2000, Deutsche bank said. taipeitimes.com