■ TAIEX dips on profit-taking
Shares on the TAIEX fell slightly yesterday on profit-taking following Monday's five-month high.
The TAIEX dropped 76.29 points, or 1.07 percent, to 7,075.13 on turnover of NT$83.868 billion (US$2.53 billion).
The index has gained 9.2 percent over the past month and rose 1.1 percent on Monday to 7,151.42.
"After rallies over the past few sessions, sectors like construction, steel -- as well as asset-rich and China-related companies -- appeared overbought," Barits Investment Service fund manager Stanley Chou said.
Among worst performing sectors, the tourism subindex fell 2.4 percent, erasing Monday's 2.2 percent gain. The textile sector lost 2.2 percent overall.
The financial subindex fell 2 percent as investors showed concern about a probe into deals involving Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金控), traders said.
■ Mutual funds gain in Q3
Retail mutual funds sold in Taiwan produced an average gain of 5.23 percent in the third quarter of the year, according to an analysis released by Standard & Poor's Fund Services yesterday.
According to the report, the best-performing category was equity funds, with an average positive return of 5.82 percent, followed by fixed income funds at 4.11 percent.
Asset allocation, which includes funds that invest in equity, fixed income, and money market securities, produced an average return of 3.6 percent.
"Our recommended country weighting for Taiwan is `overweight.' Taiwan's relative valuation is at attractive levels despite political concerns, which, in any event, we expect to abate. Signs that the US economy is heading for a soft landing should be positive for some cyclical issues and we expect the technology sector -- which is heavily represented in the TAIEX, to benefit," said Lorraine Tan, Standard & Poor's head of Asian equity research.
■ Chunghwa chooses manager
Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), Taiwan's largest phone operator, plans to invest US$100 million overseas and has named HSBC Holdings Plc as the manager of its investment fund.
The agreement signed by Chunghwa and HSBC, which started this month, would run for a term of three years, according to a statement from HSBC.
The fund would be managed by Sinopia Asset Management, the specialist asset management arm of HSBC, the statement said.
"We chose HSBC because we want to make sure that our cash flow is handled efficiently," Shen Fu-fu (沈馥馥), a spokeswoman at Chunghwa, said in an interview.
■ Suit against CPT dismissed
Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (中華映管) said a US court dismissed a claim by LG.Philips LCD Co, the world's second-largest LCD maker, that Chunghwa infringed on patents for flat screens.
US District Judge Consuela Marshall dismissed the suit, which was filed in 2002 by LG.Philips, that Chunghwa, Taiwan's third-largest maker of LCDs, infringed on four patents held by the Seoul-based company, Chunghwa said in a statement yesterday.
Chunghwa said it filed a counter-claim in 2004 stating that it owned the technology after acquiring a now-defunct company called Digital Equipment Corp.
■ NT dollar rises on yen's back
The New Taiwan dollar rose against its US counterpart yesterday, lifted by the strength of Japanese yen. However, the gains were reined in by selling as the market waited for US inflation data to be released. The local currency moved up NT$0.076 to close at NT$33.158 on the Taipei foreign exchange market yesterday on turnover of US$921 million.
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