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Shares flat after early gains
Shares closed little changed yesterday, with early gains made on Wall Street's rise and hopes of a cut in US interest rates giving way to profit-taking, dealers said.
The TAIEX closed down 9.13 points at 8,913.85, on turnover of NT$135.88 billion (US$4.12 billion).
Kevin Chung (鐘國忠), manager at Jih Sun Securities Investment Consulting Co (日盛投顧), said technical pressure prevented investors from chasing prices much higher.
On the foreign exchange market, the New Taiwan dollar continued weakening against its US counterpart due to importers' strong US dollar demand. The NT dollar lost NT$0.017 to close at NT$33.042 on the Taipei Forex Inc on turnover of US$731 million.

Analysts boost Asustek shares
Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦), the world's largest motherboard maker, rose to its highest level in more than five years on the Taiwan Stock Exchange after Citigroup Inc and Morgan Stanley raised the stock's target price.
The shares advanced 2.6 percent to NT$101, closing at their highest level since March 2002.
Kirk Yang (楊應超), an analyst at Citi Investment Research, raised his 12 month share-price estimate on Asustek's stock to NT$130 from NT$125, citing stable prices and improving profit margins. Jasmine Lu at Morgan Stanley increased her estimate from NT$81.90 to NT$110 and Jill Huang at Yuanta Core Pacific Securities Co (元大京華證券) raised the target from NT$105 to NT$136.
Taipei-based Asustek estimated average selling prices for its boards will climb 2 percent in the third quarter from the previous quarter, vice president Jerry Shen (沈振來) told reporters and analysts at a conference on Tuesday.

Foreign exchange reserves dip
Foreign exchange reserves dropped to US$261.37 billion at the end of last month from US$266.29 billion registered last month, the central bank said in a statement yesterday.
The decline came mainly as a result of foreign capital outflows, the bank said.

Innolux plans overseas listing
Innolux Display Corp (群創光電), the world's second-largest maker of flat-screen computer monitors, plans to offer up to US$1.5 billion in shares overseas to finance the construction of a liquid-crystal-display (LCD) factory in Taiwan.
The company may offer 300 million new shares for listing on the London Stock Exchange, chief financial officer Thomas Hsu (許嘉成) said by telephone yesterday, confirming an earlier Dow Jones report. He declined to specify the timing of the sale.
ABN Amro Bank, Credit Suisse Group and Morgan Stanley have been hired to arrange the sale, Hsu said.
The Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) affiliate has said it will build a US$1.8 billion LCD manufacturing line in Miaoli County.
PHS operator to raise funds
First International Telecom Corp (大眾電信), the nation's only operator of short-range PHS operator, said its board approved a proposal yesterday to raise NT$3 billion by issuing 250 million new common shares via private placement.
First International plans to use the proceeds to deploy its new WiMAX network. The share sale is expected to be completed within a year. Each share is tentatively priced at NT$12, around a 70 percent premium over its average share price of NT$7 on the Emerging Stock Market.
The board also approved a plan to suspend the trading of the shares on Emerging Stock market until sometime next year when the commercial operation of WiMAX service begins. The company is scheduled to hold a special shareholder's meeting on Nov. 2 to review the share sale.
First International currently has 1 million PHS users.

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