(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market has finished lower in three straight sessions, sinking more than 125 points or 1 percent along the way. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now rests just above the 12,825-point plateau and it may extend its losses on Friday.
The global forecast for the Asian markets is negative on rising coronavirus cases and falling hopes for stimulus. The European and U.S. markets were down and the Asian bourses are predicted to follow suit.
The TSE finished modestly lower on Thursday following losses from the financial shares and mixed performances from the technology and cement stocks.
For the day, the index lost 91.49 points or 0.71 percent to finish at 12,827.82 after trading between 12,786.26 and 12,909.11.
Among the actives, Cathay Financial declined 1.04 percent, while Mega Financial shed 0.89 percent, CTBC Financial sank 0.83 percent, Fubon Financial retreated 1.20 percent, First Financial lost 0.73 percent, E Sun Financial slid 0.40 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company skidded 1.31 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation tanked 2.02 percent, Hon Hai Precision rose 0.13 percent, Largan Precision was up 0.17 percent, Catcher Technology fell 0.28 percent, Formosa Plastic dropped 1.00 percent, Asia Cement added 0.25 percent, Taiwan Cement surrendered 0.49 percent and MediaTek was unchanged.
The lead from Wall Street is soft as stocks opened sharply lower on Friday, then cut into the losses as the session progressed but still finished in the red for the second straight day.
The Dow fell 19.80 points or 0.07 percent to finish at 28,494.20, while the NASDAQ lost 54.86 points or 0.47 percent to end at 11,713.87 and the S&P 500 eased 5.33 points or 0.15 percent to close at 3,483.34.
The initial sell-off on Wall Street came amid uncertainty about a new stimulus bill after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin suggested on Wednesday that a new relief package is not likely to pass before next month's elections.
Early selling pressure was also generated by a Labor Department report showing an unexpected increase in first-time claims for U.S. jobless benefits last week.
However, stocks rebounded well off their lows after Mnuchin told reporters that he and President Donald Trump are committed to getting a stimulus deal done.
Crude oil prices rebounded from early weakness to pare most of their losses on Thursday after data showed a larger than expected drop in U.S. crude inventories last week. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for November ended down $0.08 or 0.2 percent at $40.96 a barrel.
Iteris, Inc. (NASDAQ: ITI), the global leader in smart mobility infrastructure management, today announced the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) has awarded Iteris a $5.4 million contract extension to continue its use of Iteris’ next-generation traveler information services solution to power the San Francisco Bay Area's 511 traveler information system.
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Iteris Awarded $5.4 Million Contract Extension by San Francisco Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation Commission (Photo: Business Wire)
Iteris has been providing key services of the 511 SF Bay traveler information system to the MTC since 2015 and the new contract extension will continue this partnership a further two years. Under the terms of the contract extension with the MTC, Iteris will continue to operate and maintain the 511 SF Bay interactive voice response (IVR) system, and provide regional transit data integration, software support and technical services for the MTC’s 511 Operations Center. These efforts will ensure continued innovation and longevity, while preserving the functionality and features that the MTC and 511 SF Bay travelers depend on.
"Iteris is excited to extend our partnership with the San Francisco Bay Area MTC by continuing to operate key services of the region’s 511 traveler information system,” said Scott Carlson, vice president and assistant general manager, Transportation Systems at Iteris. "We are committed to ensuring the San Francisco Bay Area travelers and public transit riders, who make 1.5 million daily trips, are able to access accurate, real-time travel information that improves their mobility across the nine-county region.”
Iteris provides multimodal traveler information services for 11 state and regional transportation agencies across the U.S. as part of the ClearMobility™ Platform, supporting over 63 million combined interactions and 7.1 million individual IVR phone calls in the past year alone.
About the ClearMobility Platform
The ClearMobility Platform is the world’s most complete solution to continuously monitor, visualize and optimize mobility infrastructure. ClearMobility applies cloud computing, artificial intelligence, advanced sensors, advisory services and managed services to help ensure roads are safe, travel is efficient, and communities thrive.
About Iteris, Inc.
Iteris is the global leader in smart mobility infrastructure management – the foundation for a new era of mobility. We apply cloud computing, artificial intelligence, advanced sensors, advisory services and managed services to achieve safe, efficient and sustainable mobility. Our end-to-end solutions monitor, visualize and optimize mobility infrastructure around the world to help ensure that roads are safe, travel is efficient, and communities thrive. Visit www.iteris.com for more information and join the conversation on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
Iteris Forward-Looking Statements
This release may contain forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof and are based upon our current expectations and the information available to us at this time. Words such as "believes," "anticipates," "expects," "intends," "plans," "seeks," "estimates," "may," "should,” "will,” "can," and variations of these words or similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These statements include, but are not limited to, statements about the awarded contract and capabilities and benefits of our ClearRoute traveler information services. Such statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that are difficult to predict, and actual results could differ materially and adversely from those expressed in any forward-looking statements as a result of various factors.
Important factors that may cause such a difference include, but are not limited to, our ability to provide our services in a cost-efficient manner; our ability to introduce, market and gain broad acceptance of our new and existing product and service offerings in the transportation industry; the potential impact of product and service offerings from competitors and other competitive pressures; challenges in the development of software-based solutions generally; and the impact of general economic, political and other conditions in the markets we address. Further information on Iteris, Inc., including additional risk factors that may affect our forward-looking statements, is contained in our Annual Report on Form 10-K, our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, our Current Reports on Form 8-K, and our other SEC filings that are available through the SEC’s website (www.sec.gov).
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200811005240/en/
Chenxi Wang of Rain Capital.
Rain CapitalInvestments in cybersecurity were 19% of all early venture capital deals in Q3, a record high, according to startup accelerator DataTribe.
DataTribe says cybersecurity investing marks one of the "first signs of recovery," especially in the area of security protecting software development.
Investment experts at Kleiner Perkins, Rain, Sapphire, and PitchBook also shared their opinions on the hot areas of cybersecurity investing.
The investors names the startups Apiiro, BioCatch, Netskope, BlackCloak, and Exabeam as possible breakouts as an economic recovery hits cybersecurity, perhaps in Q4.
Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Cybersecurity is heading into the home stretch of 2020 as a bright spot in investing – especially for new startups that address certain areas such as remote work needs – according to a new report and commentary from top investors.
This makes investment in cybersecurity an early and promising area of economic recovery from the COVID-19 downturn, they say. New research from cybersecurity startup accelerator DataTribe shows seed investment in security startups is booming, both in comparison to past years and to other parts of tech.
"These numbers are the craziest I've ever seen in all my years of doing this," says Mike Janke, cofounder of DataTribe. In Q3, cybersecurity represented a record-high 19% of all US early venture activity, the report found. Deal size for early cybersecurity startups was up 33% in Q3 compared to Q3 2019, DataTribe found.
"Q3 marks the first signs of recovery for those industries bolstered by the pandemic, particularly cybersecurity," DataTribe says in the new report. Janke and other top investment experts point to certain key areas in Q4 and 2021, including the red-hot area of developer security, which involves protecting computer code from security vulnerabilities as software and applications are being created.
Forrester cybersecurity analyst Jeff Pollard agrees that security investing could lead the way out of the downturn for tech. "Cybersecurity spending – due to externalities such as attackers, regulatory bodies, governments, and third party requirements – will likely make the sector a source of faster recovery in tech spending areas," he says.
Here is the guidance from Janke and four other top experts on where they're placing their bets:
Mike Janke, cofounder of DataTribe startup accelerator Mike Janke of DataTribe.
DataTribe
Janke says there is a boom in developer security operations – the sector of cybersecurity that helps developers ensure the computer code they use to build software is free of security issues. "DevSecOps is a hot area," he says.
He points to a related area, security for developers of applications, as a hot area for startups including DataTribe investment Code Dx. And he says protection of executives working at home is a hot trend, led by DataTribe investment BlackCloak.
"You now have CEOs, CFOs, and board members all working from home, on home networks," he says, where they are vulnerable to hackers, including well-funded nation-state hackers from adversaries such as Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran.
Ted Schlein, general partner at high-profile venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Ted Schlein of Kleiner Perkins.
Kleiner Perkins
Another fan of developer security is Ted Schlein, the longtime cybersecurity investor and general partner at revered VC Kleiner Perkins. Schlein told Business Insider he has been waiting to nip security issues in the bud for a long time. "I have spent 35 years trying to get at the root cause of cybersecurity issues."
In cybersecurity this is sometimes referred to as "shifting left," beginning security earlier into the product development. Schlein believes the sector is "a big deal." Schlein says Apiiro, which just grabbed a $35 million Series A round that he led, is a key example of companies preventing security issues that are now even harder to track down and address in a distributed workforce.
Other trends he thinks will be key for investment include cybersecurity startups that fight disinformation to "figure out what what's real and what's not real and the dissemination of this information," and security that protects supply chains. Schlein's other security investments include potential acquisition target Ionic Security, and the red-hot cyberthreat intelligence startup IronNet.
Chenxi Wang, founder and general partner, Rain Capital Rain Capital cofounder Chenxi Wang.
Rain Capital
Chenxi Wang, founder and general partner, Rain Capital, is an early-stage investor who says small companies can blow up fast in the quick evolving area of cybersecurity. She has also seen recent interest in new companies keeping pace with cybersecurity's new directions during the remote work era.
"I see a lot of interest in young companies from other investors, particularly in cloud security," says Wang. "It used to be the case that you had to be fairly senior in the security industry before you sold your product to the Fortune 500. Today I think it's very common for a small startup that has an interesting product to be deployed in one of the largest banks or large healthcare companies."
Wang says Rain investment Jupiter One uses automation to simplify security operations – automatically gathering key security data from all areas of companies' networks. She also praises Rain investment Satori Cyber in the data-protection area where many companies need help complying with data protection regulations. Wang also touts her investment Living Security, a training startup that engages employees in security education, another hot area.
Brendan Burke, senior analyst at PitchBook Analyst Brendan Burke of PitchBook.
PitchBook
"DevSecOps" – short for developer security operations, the area many of our experts cited – "has rapidly emerged from obscurity" to become one of the highest-funded categories in cybersecurity, according to PitchBook. Brendan Burke, a senior analyst at the startup analysis firm, believes the sector is worth $11.6 billion, with most of it up for grabs. Burke sees a "$9.2 billion revenue opportunity that is largely unaddressed by legacy cybersecurity vendors."
The hot startup Snyk, as well as the aforementioned Apiiro and Sonatype are booming in this sector. Burke also believes behavioral biometrics – unlocking phones and online accounts with facial recognition and gesture recognition – is another hot area of cybersecurity investing.
The Israeli startup BioCatch recently extended a $168 million Series C round, and commercial adoption from financial institutions, he notes. "Demand for fraud prevention technology has become heightened as a result of COVID-19 and behavioral analysis can adapt to novel forms of fraud," Burke says.
Jai Das, investor with Sapphire Ventures Jai Das of Sapphire Ventures
Sapphire Ventures
Jai Das of Sapphire Investments sees three major trends blowing up in cybersecurity investing right now: First, the movement to remote work has widened companies' "perimeter" of computer networks they need to defend. Second, security products that protect cloud-based operations run with computer code in "containers," an increasingly popular way to deploy software in clouds like Amazon's, Microsoft's, or Google's. And third, "hacking and ransomware have accelerated tremendously," Das says, and companies "are trying to plug all the security holes" that allow ransomware hackers access.
Das says "There is a new breed of cloud native security companies that are solving these problems and growing very rapidly." Das points to three of his firm's investments in cloud security: Netskope, Auth0 and Exabeam. He also says that "companies like Snyk and Tanium are also doing quite well in this environment."
