Financials boost share prices
Share prices closed 1.47 percent higher yesterday as investors picked up financial stocks that have lagged the broader market, dealers said.
Construction and petrochemicals also rebounded from last Friday’s weakness, they said.
The TAIEX closed up 131.77 points at the day’s high of 9,079.60 on turnover of NT$145.245 billion (US$4.78 billion).
Decliners outnumbered advancers 1,321 to 1,037, with 288 stocks unchanged. A total of 15 stocks closed limit-up, while 19 were limit-down.
Alex Huang (黃國偉), an assistant vice president of Mega International Investment Services (兆豐證券), said the rally was liquidity-driven.
“Long-term investors spurred by expectations of better cross-strait relations continued to build portfolios, although some short-term players showed concerns over corporate earnings and fundamental issues such as inflation,” he said.
Financial stocks staged a comeback, attracting the interest of those who expect the new government that takes office May 20 to allow banks more leeway to operate in China.
“The fact some foreign investors bought into some large-cap financial firms on Friday also boosted sentiment,” Huang said.
Though some technology stocks were depressed by the lackluster showing of their US counterparts on Friday, heavyweights including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (台積電) and United Microelectronics (聯電) performed well enough to push the electronics subindex higher, dealers said.
SMIC narrows losses
Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), China’s biggest chipmaker, said its full-year loss narrowed last year on lower interest charges and gains from foreign currency transactions.
The net loss was US$19.5 million, compared with a deficit of US$44.1 million a year earlier, the company said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange yesterday. Sales rose to US$1.55 billion from US$1.47 billion.
Interest expenses fell to US$37.9 million last year, compared with US$50.9 million a year earlier, the statement said.
SMIC, listed in Hong Kong and New York, also had a US$11.2 million gain from foreign currency transactions, compared with a US$21.9 million loss in 2006, the statement said.
Operating losses widened to US$35.9 million from US$13.9 million, it said.
Qantas raising fares
Australia’s national airline Qantas said yesterday it will increase air fares on May 9 to rising fuel costs and protect its profitability.
International fares will rise by about 3 percent and domestic fares will increase by about 3.5 percent, the airline said, adding that its budget offshoot Jetstar was reviewing its own fare levels.
But chief executive Geoff Dixon said that while higher fuel prices remained a concern, the group’s fundamentals remain strong.
“We remain confident of meeting our guidance for a 2007/08 result of a least 40 percent higher than the 2006/07 reported profit before tax,” Dixon said.
Last year, Qantas reported pretax profit of A$1.03 billion (US$963 million), up from the previous year’s A$671.2 million.
Dixon said Qantas had also decided it was “prudent” to suspend its share buyback. Since the buyback started in September last year, Qantas had bought back more than A$500 million in shares, he said.
NT dollar weakens
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday weakened by NT$0.072 to trade at NT$30.412 against the greenback on turnover of US$1.443 billion.
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