Evergreen Marine, ProMOS Tech lead decliners on TAIEX

Stocks fell yesterday after crude oil prices surged to a record in the wake of terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia. Evergreen Marine Corp (長榮海運) led declines.

ProMOS Technologies Inc (茂德科技) dropped 4.2 percent to NT$18.10 after the Web-based analyst Dramexchange.com said in a weekly forecast that spot prices of the most widely used computer-memory chip may slide this week.

The TAIEX shed 110.53, or 1.9 percent, to 5,875.67. Almost 10 shares declined for each that rose. Turnover was NT$55.47 billion (US$1.65 billion), down from NT$66.21 billion in the previous day.

The New Taiwan dollar also moved down against its US counterpart, declining NT$0.114 to close at NT$33.559 on the Taipei foreign exchange market.

Evergreen Marine, Asia's largest container shipping company by fleet size, fell 2.2 percent to NT$26.30.