Market makes correction
Shares closed sharply lower, losing 1.78 percent yesterday as profit-taking gained momentum and reversed early gains made on Wall Street's recovery overnight, dealers said.
They said the unusually high turnover could signal a major reverse after a recent advance had suggested the market was set for a sustained rally towards 10,000 points on the benchmark index.
The TAIEX lost 173.71 points to 9,566.42, off an intraday high of 9,807.91, on turnover of NT$320.52 billion (US$9.71 billion).
Decliners led risers 1,181 to 404, with 77 stocks unchanged.
"Today's big decline could be reasonably described as an overdue but healthy correction," said Alvin Teng (鄧可欣), SinoPac Securities (永豐金證券) assistant vice president.
"This should especially be the case as the market had moved even closer to 10,000 points, a psychologically significant level not seen since April 2000," he said.
On the foreign exchange market, the NT dollar traded NT$0.048 lower to close at NT$32.840. Turnover was US$873 million on the Taipei Forex Inc.
Firich surpasses NT$1,000 mark
Shares of Firich Enterprises Co (伍豐科技), an industrial computer manufacturer making point-of-sale (POS) devices, surpassed the NT$1,000 (US$30.36) mark for the first time yesterday.
Firich stock peaked at NT$1,050 in the middle of the day's trading, before closing at NT$1,015 on the over-the-counter GRETAI Securities Market. The closing price represented a 2.3 percent rise on the previous day.
Surpassing the NT$1,000 mark makes Firich a top stock, along with High Tech Computer Corp (宏達電) and E-ton Solar Tech Co (益通光能).
Firich yesterday estimated its net income for the first half of the year at NT$502 million, or NT$8.94 per share. Its cumulative sales as of last month were NT$1.59 billion.
S&P says it won't cut rating
Standard & Poor's (S&P) said it won't cut Taiwan's debt rating, after a newspaper reported a possible downgrade because of the nation's budget deficit.
Taiwan's budget deficit, including shortfalls of the central and local governments and special budget items, almost doubled as a percentage of its gross domestic product to 3.1 percent last year from 1.7 percent in the previous year, Tan Kim-eng (陳錦榮), a Singapore-based associate director at S&P, said in a phone interview yesterday.
"That said, we wouldn't downgrade Taiwan simply because of this, and the negative outlook attached to Taiwan's current ratings is suitable," said Tan, who plans to visit Taiwan by September before making an announcement on the nation's rating.
The Chinese-language Commercial Times, citing an internal study by S&P, today reported that Taiwan's debt rating may be downgraded by Standard & Poor's on concerns over the deficit.
Taiwan has an AA- rating at S&P, according to Bloomberg data.
Bionet surges on debut
Bionet Corp (訊聯生物科技), which offers cord blood preservation services, made its debut on the over-the-counter GRETAI Securities Market yesterday as a technology stock, at an initial offering price of NT$23 (US$0.70) per share.
Bionet's share price surged to NT$150 on opening, hitting a high of NT$229 in mid-session before closing the day at NT$190.
The company posted net profits of NT$20.5 million, or earnings per share of NT$0.83, in the first half of the year, up 168 percent from the same period last year. Revenues rose 26.8 percent year-on-year to NT$177 million during the same period.
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