Shares fell yesterday on declines in banking and technology stocks following weakness in regional markets and Wall Street overnight.
The TAIEX fell 81.63 points, or 1.2 percent, to 6,494.15, on turnover of NT$83.27 billion (US$2.56 billion).
"There was a shortage of positive cues to boost sentiment," said Jeffrey Cheng, an analyst at Yuanta Core Pacific Management (元大京華投顧).
Cheng said investors were cautious and preferred to unwind some of their shareholdings given expectations of a typically slow season for the tech sector in the first half of the year.
Declines in the US, Japanese and South Korean stock markets also fueled the main board's decline, analysts said.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.57 percent, and the NASDAQ Composite Index dropped 0.7 percent overnight.
In trading yesterday, Korea's Composite Stock Price Index was 2.2 percent lower, and the Nikkei Stock Average 225 was down 1 percent.
In Taiwan, the technology subindex fell 1.3 percent.
Among the sector's biggest decliners were liquid-crystal-display (LCD) panel companies. There was speculation that slowing demand would cause prices for LCD panels to fall over the coming few months, said Barits International Investment Service (倍利投顧) analyst Stanley Chou.
The global No. 3 LCD panel maker by revenue, AU Optronics Corp (
Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (
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