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Shares slip 0.51 percent

Share prices closed down 0.51 percent yesterday ahead of major corporate earnings reports, with lackluster Asian and US market performance also weighing on sentiment, dealers said.

The weighted index closed down 46.07 points at 9,037.25, after moving in the range of 8,997.02 and 9,081.29.

Turnover was NT$137.69 billion (US$4.54 billion).

Decliners outnumbered gainers 1,322 to 967, while 346 stocks were unchanged. A total of 23 stocks closed limit-up, while 20 were limit-down.

“Technology stocks suffered ... with investors awaiting many large-cap firms’ earnings announcements,” said Samson Chueh (闕山雄), an assistant vice president at Yuanta Core Pacific Capital Management Co (元大投顧).

Unemployment down slightly

The unemployment rate came in at 3.86 percent last month, down from 3.94 percent in February, as the number of people who quit work fell, the government said yesterday.

Last month’s jobless figure compared with 3.94 percent in March last year, the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics said.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, the unemployment rate was 3.90 percent for last month, down from 3.95 percent in the previous month and 3.94 percent a year earlier, it added.

In the first three months of the year, unemployment averaged 3.87 percent, up from 3.84 percent in the year-earlier period, it said.

Sintek to sell two factories

Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (中華映管), the nation’s third-largest maker of liquid-crystal displays, said it plans to buy two factories from smaller rival Sintek Photronic Corp (和鑫光電) for NT$2.3 billion ($76 million).

Chunghwa’s purchase of the color-filter plants in Hsinchu includes land and equipment, the Taoyuan-based company said in a statement yesterday. The filters are used in LCDs.

“The color filter has been in a shortage for a while and we want to make sure there is enough supply,” James Wu (巫俊毅), Chunghwa Picture’s chief financial officer, said yesterday.

The two companies will complete the transaction by the end of this quarter.

Sintek will still own and operate a color filter plant in Tainan, southern Taiwan, Mark Sheu, a finance manager at the company, said. LCD-maker Hannstar Display Corp (瀚宇彩晶) is Sintek’s biggest shareholder with a 19 percent stake, Sheu added.

FSC offers grace period

The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday released a law amendment draft to give a grace period for incumbent top managers at financial institutions who double as top management in other non-financial firms, to quit their second jobs.

“No top management in financial institutions will ever double as top management in other companies after May 2010, at the latest,” FSC Vice Chairwoman Susan Chang (張秀蓮) told a media briefing.

The commission’s new regulation, which took effect last May, disallowed future financial institutions’ top management including, chairmen, presidents, board members or chief executive officers, to work part-time in other companies’ managerial positions.

NT unchanged on dollar

The New Taiwan dollar remained unchanged against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, closing at NT$30.288.

A total of US$829 million changed hands during the day’s trading.
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