Applied Materials Inc., the leading global provider of manufacturing solutions for the semiconductor, display and solar industries, recently reported results for its second quarter of fiscal 2012 ended April 29.

Facebook was supposed to soar. Instead, it plunged. After the social network's stock fizzled on Friday in its long-awaited debut, its stock fell 11 percent on Monday, even as the rest of the stock market rallied.

Struggling Internet company Yahoo Inc. has secured a lifeline after agreeing to sell half of its prized stake in Chinese e-commerce group Alibaba for about US$7.1 billion, with most of the cash going to shareholders.

Representatives from six industry and commerce associations plan to visit Legislative Yuan Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) and Premier Sean Chen (陳冲) and hope to meet the president to voice out their disagreement about the stock gains tax.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao called for greater efforts to support growth, through more monetary fine-tuning and fiscal incentives, amid signs of the economy further cooling.

Taiwan's stocks and currency both rose yesterday, the first trading day of President Ma Ying-jeou's second term, although trade volume on the Taiwan Stock Exchange was still thin.

Cooperating with overseas companies on domestic offshore blocks comes naturally to China National Offshore Oil Corp, the country's biggest marine oil producer, ever since it was established in 1981.

The European Central Bank's “plan A” is for Greece to remain in the single currency and that is the only scenario the central bank is working on, a top ECB official said on Monday.

McDonald's started its biggest ever recruitment plan in China Sunday, hoping to meet its ambitious expansion goals in the company's third-largest market.

HTC Corp.'s quarterly sales will likely be affected by the ongoing U.S. Customs review to a limited extent only, as import shipments of the Taiwanese smartphone vendor are being cleared quicker than expected, a Taipei-based analyst said yesterday.