Shares ended slightly lower yesterday, as suspected government support mostly offset selling caused by interest rate hike concerns and China's harsh response to President Chen Shui-bian's (
The TAIEX finished 22.86 points, or 0.4 percent, lower at 5,942.08 on turnover of NT$85.26 billion (US$2.54 billion).
Decliners outnumbered gainers 484 to 315, while 172 stocks finished unchanged.
Early in the session, China's Taiwan Affairs Office said Chen had shown "no sincerity to improve relations" in his inauguration speech.
"What Beijing said was nothing new, but it was undoubtedly negative," said George Wu (吳裕良) of Primasia Securities Co.
Wu said government funds were suspected of stepping into the market shortly before the Taiwan Affairs Office began a press conference. At one point the benchmark index rose to a high of 6,021.
However, the support wasn't sufficient to outweigh a host of negative factors. Investors were also concerned about a possible interest rate hike in the US and high global oil prices, traders and analysts said.
Memory chip stocks were among the biggest decliners after a newspaper said memory chip prices would likely fall further.
Winbond Electronics Corp (
The flat panel sector was mixed. AU Optronics Corp (友達光電) fell 0.8 percent to NT$66 after the paper reported the price of 30-inch flat panels used in televisions has fallen below US$1,000.
Nissan Motor Co has agreed to sell its global headquarters in Yokohama for ￥97 billion (US$630 million) to a group sponsored by Taiwanese autoparts maker Minth Group (敏實集團), as the struggling automaker seeks to shore up its financial position. The acquisition is led by a special purchase company managed by KJR Management Ltd, a Japanese real-estate unit of private equity giant KKR & Co, people familiar with the matter said. KJR said it would act as asset manager together with Mizuho Real Estate Management Co. Nissan is undergoing a broad cost-cutting campaign by eliminating jobs and shuttering plants as it grapples
TEMPORARY TRUCE: China has made concessions to ease rare earth trade controls, among others, while Washington holds fire on a 100% tariff on all Chinese goods China is effectively suspending implementation of additional export controls on rare earth metals and terminating investigations targeting US companies in the semiconductor supply chain, the White House announced. The White House on Saturday issued a fact sheet outlining some details of the trade pact agreed to earlier in the week by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that aimed to ease tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Under the deal, China is to issue general licenses valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite “for the benefit of US end users and their suppliers
PERSISTENT RUMORS: Nvidia’s CEO said the firm is not in talks to sell AI chips to China, but he would welcome a change in US policy barring the activity Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company is not in discussions to sell its Blackwell artificial intelligence (AI) chips to Chinese firms, waving off speculation it is trying to engineer a return to the world’s largest semiconductor market. Huang, who arrived in Taiwan yesterday ahead of meetings with longtime partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), took the opportunity to clarify recent comments about the US-China AI race. The Nvidia head caused a stir in an interview this week with the Financial Times, in which he was quoted as saying “China will win” the AI race. Huang yesterday said
Dutch chipmaker Nexperia BV’s China unit yesterday said that it had established sufficient inventories of finished goods and works-in-progress, and that its supply chain remained secure and stable after its parent halted wafer supplies. The Dutch company suspended supplies of wafers to its Chinese assembly plant a week ago, calling it “a direct consequence of the local management’s recent failure to comply with the agreed contractual payment terms,” Reuters reported on Friday last week. Its China unit called Nexperia’s suspension “unilateral” and “extremely irresponsible,” adding that the Dutch parent’s claim about contractual payment was “misleading and highly deceptive,” according to a statement
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