A Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store Co employee poses with mooncake gift boxes at a news conference in Taipei yesterday. The Mid-Autumn Festival falls on Sept. 25 this year.

Photo courtesy of Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store Co

When rival hedge funds face catastrophic losses, billionaire investor Ken Griffin has a habit of identifying opportunities and showing up with a checkbook. Citadel’s founder last week reprised his role as one of Wall Street’s rescue buyers, stepping in to salvage California hedge fund Situational Awareness as it buckled under souring bets on artificial intelligence (AI) stocks. Amid market rumblings that at least one firm was in trouble, Griffin, 57, assembled his top lieutenants to investigate, five people with knowledge of the matter said. By Wednesday morning, Citadel executives had reached out to Situational Awareness, and Griffin spoke directly with Leopold Aschenbrenner,

‘STRONGER DEMAND’ : Company executives said that a lot of new investments are needed, although there are capacity bottlenecks for automation and innovation ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控) yesterday increased its capital expenditure for this year to US$10.5 billion, up 23.5 percent from its previous budget of US$8.5 billion, amid robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The world’s largest supplier of packaging and testing services plans to allocate about 70 percent of the increased spending to capacity expansion, mainly for leading-edge advanced packaging (LEAP) technology, with LEAP revenue forecast to exceed US$3.5 billion this year, ASE said. “Obviously we are seeing a stronger demand ... from not just customers, but also our foundry partner,” ASE chief financial officer Joseph Tung (董宏思) told an earnings