Investors stay on sidelines
Shares rose slightly yesterday, with small investors staying on the sidelines ahead of today's settlement of index futures traded in Singapore.
The TAIEX rose 13.85 points, or 0.2 percent, to 6,316.84.
The Morgan Stanley Capital International Taiwan futures index was trading at a premium to the spot index yesterday.
That means"more bullish trade in the near term," said Ta Ching Securities (大慶證券) manager Daniel Liu.
But the coming futures settlement kept retail investors on the sidelines.
Turnover of shares dropped followed trading errors made by Fubon Securities (富邦證券) the day before, while electronics shares gained 0.2 percent as a whole.
United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) rose 0.9 percent to NT$23.40, but Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) fell 0.2 percent to NT$56.40.
MOFA lifts Phuket alert
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) lifted a travel alert on Phuket yesterday, saying after careful evaluation it no longer considers the Thai island risky for traveling.
"After careful evaluation and review of information from other countries, including the United States, which has already removed its travel alert, we decided to lift the warning effective today," the ministry said in a press statement.
The ministry issued the Phuket warning on Dec. 27 after the island was hit by a devastating tsunami that killed thousands of people.
Chunghwa share sale okayed
Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) obtained the approval of the Financial Supervisory Commission to sell a government stake overseas, which would put control of the company in private hands.
"The company's plan of selling as many as 1.64 billion Chunghwa Telecom shares overseas in the form of depository receipts was approved," the Securities and Futures Bureau said yesterday in a statement on its Web site.
Chunghwa Telecom's board passed a plan on June 15 to help the Ministry of Transportation and Communications to sell as many as 1.64 billion shares, or a 17 percent stake, in the company to investors abroad.
Ting Hsin to buy store stake
Ting Hsin International Group (頂新) and Itochu Corp and its affiliates are buying the 35 percent stake in a store venture that they do not already own from China International Trust & Investment Corp (中信信託), a Chinese-language newspaper reported citing an official at Ting Hsin.
The purchase, which costs 26 million yuan (US$3 million), has already received approval from the Chinese authorities and is expected to be completed by the middle of next month, the newspaper said, citing Ting Hsin chairman Wei Ying-chiao (魏應充) as saying.
The venture, which is 65 percent owned by Ting Hsin, Itochu, FamilyMart Co and Taiwan FamilyMart Co (台灣全家), was set up last year to operate convenience stores in China.
The purchase will make the unit the first convenience store chain in China wholly owned by foreign investors, the report said.
Tokyo-based FamilyMart Co, a member of the Itochu Group, is Japan's third-biggest convenience store chain. Itochu Corp is Japan's fourth-largest trading company and owns about 7 percent of Taiwan FamilyMart. Ting Hsin owns a third of China's biggest instant-noodle maker.
NT dollar loses ground
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday continued losing ground against its US counterpart, dropping NT$0.069 to close at NT$31.434 on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$1.09 billion, up from US$408 million on Monday.
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