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.
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves fell below the US$600 billion mark at the end of last month, with the central bank reporting a total of US$596.89 billion — a decline of US$8.6 billion from February — ending a three-month streak of increases. The central bank attributed the drop to a combination of factors such as outflows by foreign institutional investors, currency fluctuations and its own market interventions. “The large-scale outflows disrupted the balance of supply and demand in the foreign exchange market, prompting the central bank to intervene repeatedly by selling US dollars to stabilize the local currency,” Department of Foreign
Intel Corp is joining Elon Musk’s long-shot effort to develop semiconductors for Tesla Inc, Space Exploration Technologies Corp and xAI, marking a surprising twist in the chipmaker’s comeback bid. Intel would help the Terafab project “refactor” the technology in a chip factory, the company said on Tuesday in a post on X, Musk’s social media platform. That is a stage in the development process that typically helps make chips more powerful or reliable. The chipmaker’s shares jumped 4.2 percent to US$52.91 in New York trading on Tuesday. The Terafab project is a grand plan by Musk to eventually manufacture his own chips for
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) yesterday said it plans to resume operations at two coal-fired power generators for three months to boost security of electricity supply as liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply risks are running high due to the Middle East conflict. The two coal-fired power generators are at Mailiao Power Plant in Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮). The plant, operated by Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), supplied electricity to Taipower’s power grid until the end of last year. Taipower’s decision came about one month after Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) on March 10 said that the nation had no imminent
Some robotaxi passengers were left stranded in the middle of fast-moving traffic in a major Chinese city after their driverless vehicles stopped running, according to police and media reports on Wednesday. A preliminary investigation indicates more than 100 robotaxis came to a halt because of a “system malfunction,” police in the city of Wuhan said in a statement, without elaborating. No injuries were reported. One passenger told Chinese media that their robotaxi stopped after turning a corner. An instruction on a screen read: “Driving system malfunction. Staff are expected to arrive in 5 minutes.” After no one showed up, the passenger pushed
RSS