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■ TAIEX closes flat
Shares ended flat yesterday on profit-taking after the TAIEX rose early as it tracked Wall Street. The TAIEX finished a marginal 0.15 points higher at 5,818.22. Decliners narrowly outnumbered advancers 416 to 404, while 193 issues ended the day unchanged. The bourse's "lack of momentum is giving investors cause to take profits on even quite incremental gains," said Andrew Teng (鄧安瀾), a manager at Taiwan International Securities (金鼎證券). The technology sector fell 0.4 percent as a whole, with flat-panel maker Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子) 4.7 percent lower at NT$50.5.

■ Citigroup cuts Hon Hai rating
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), Taiwan's largest electronics company, had a recommendation on its shares downgraded to "sell" from "buy" at Citigroup Inc, which cited a faltering profit margin. Hon Hai's first-quarter profit was NT$7.3 billion (US$230 million), 5.7 percent lower than Citigroup's forecast, Kirk Yang, an analyst at the brokerage, said today in a research report. The company reported first-quarter earnings on April 30. Hon Hai has been forced to produce lower-margin products such as notebook computers to maintain its 30 percent annual sales growth, Yang said in the report. He cut his forecast for the stock's price target in the next 12 months to NT$136 from NT$169. Hon Hai yesterday finished 3.4 percent lower at NT$143.5.

■ Quanta's Q1 profit drops 32%
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦), the world's largest notebook-computer maker, said first-quarter profit fell 32 percent to NT$2.04 billion, or NT$0.66 a share, from NT$3 billion, or NT$1.08, a year earlier, because of lower prices and a loss from the company's investment in flat-panel displays. In a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday, Quanta said full-year net income fell 10 percent to NT$12 billion last year from NT$13.3 billion a year earlier. The company's board yesterday approved a cash dividend of NT$2.5 per share, based on Quanta earnings for last year, it said in a separate filing to the stock exchange. The board also approved a proposal to give stockholders five shares for every 100 they hold.

■ Fubon Financial revises profit
Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控), Taiwan's second-largest financial services company by market value, said it revised its first-quarter profit higher after conducting an audit. Net income was NT$4.26 billion (US$136 million), 12 percent lower than the NT$4.84 billion posted a year earlier, the company said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.

■ ASML to supply ProMOS
ASML Holding NV, Europe's largest producer of machines to make semiconductors, won a contract to supply equipment to a new chip factory from ProMOS Technologies Inc (茂德科技), Taiwan's second-largest maker of computer-memory chips. Financial details of the contract were not disclosed by Veldhoven, Netherlands-based ASML in its e-mailed statement yesterday. ASML's machines that will be used in ProMOS's new factory can handle silicon wafers measuring 12 inches in diameter. "Our new facility and the systems supplied by ASML will be at full production for anticipated market growth in 2006," Len Mei (梅倫), senior vice president of the manufacturing group at ProMOS, said in the statement.

■ NT dollar weakens slightly
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday traded lower against its US counterpart, declining NT$0.001 to close at NT$31.280 on the Taipei foreign-exchange market. Turnover was US$660 million.

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