■ TAIEX edges up 2.06 points
Shares closed little changed in active trade yesterday after moving largely sideways, as investors continued to refrain from pushing share prices higher on the back of Wall Street's gains overnight and a further pull-back in oil prices, dealers said.
The TAIEX closed up 2.06 points or 0.03 percent at 7,259.54, off a low of 7,251.65 and a high of 7,287.91, on turnover of NT$105.36 billion (US$3.20 billion).
Advancers outpaced decliners 581 to 562 and 195 stocks were unchanged.
For the week, the weighted index closed up 85.34 points or 1.19 percent after a 0.18 percent increase a week earlier.
Average daily turnover stood at NT$103.48 billion, compared with NT$105.37 billion a week earlier.
■ VIA denies spinoff rumors
VIA Technologies Inc (威盛電子), the nation's biggest supplier of PC chipsets, denied a news report that it might spin off its microprocessor business and scale back its chipset production because of pressure from client Intel Corp.
"The report isn't true," Richard Chang (張育達), deputy spokesman for VIA, said in a telephone interview yesterday. "It's purely market and media speculation."
The Chinese-language Com-mercial Times reported yesterday, citing unidentified industry officials, that Intel, which accounts for about 60 percent of VIA's sales, had asked the Taiwanese chipmaker to exit the processor market.
In return, Intel would continue buying chips from VIA, the newspaper said.
■ Notebook shipments jump
Third-quarter notebook shipments from tier-one makers grew an aggregate 20 percent from the second quarter, according to a Taipei-based market researcher.
Combined shipments from Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦), Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶電腦), Wistron Corp (緯創), Inventec Electronics Corp (英業達) and Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦) outpaced the industry growth rate, according to a report from DRAMeXchange that was released on Wednesday.
Quanta accounted for 27.8 percent of global production, Compal had 18.7 percent, Wistron 13.9 percent, Inventec 9.9 percent and Asustek 7.3 percent.
Meanwhile, second-tier notebook makers reported mixed results.
While Elitegroup Computer Systems Co (精英電腦) and Uniwill Computer Corp (志合電腦) benefited from the seasonal uptrend, Mitac Technology Corp (神基科技) and Arima Computer Corp (華宇電腦) did not fare well during the busy period, it said.
Gravel, cement imports rise
The nation's imports of gravel from China have continued to rise as a result of a flourishing real estate market, a government source said yesterday.
Imports of gravel reached 23.326 million tonnes in the first nine months of the year, up 66.4 percent over the year-earlier level.
Of the total, 23.2 million tonnes came from China, representing a year-on-year increase of 66.1 percent, officials from the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics said.
The nation also imported 1.27 million tonnes of cement in the January to September period, representing a year-on-year increase of 8.3 percent.
Of the total, 1.02 million tonnes came from China, marking an increase of 14.6 percent from the year-earlier level.
■ NT dollar falls further
The New Taiwan dollar remained weak against its US counterpart, declining NT$0.091 to close at NT$32.934 on the Taipei foreign exchange market.
Turnover was US$788 million.
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