Print

Mail

wiki links

Business Briefs

Shares up 3.1 percent

Taiwanese shares closed up 3.1 percent yesterday as investors bought into large cap stocks after a Wall Street rally overnight, dealers said.

The TAIEX rose 207.33 points to 6,890.44 on turnover of NT$223.54 billion (US$6.86 billion).

Gainers outnumbered losers by 1,802 to 474 with 82 stocks unchanged.

The market opened 1.76 percent higher and the momentum accelerated to push through the key 6,800 point level as institutional investors rushed to pick up large cap electronic and financial stocks, dealers said.

“Today’s buying was impressive. The latest Wall Street strong gains seemed to prompt investors to think further uptrend will follow,” Grand Cathay Securities (大華證券) analyst Mars Hsu said.

“I suspect the buying came from foreign institutional investors who still needed to short cover their positions after the local bourse’s recent significant gains,” Hsu said.

THSRC satisfaction down

Only 47 percent of Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC, 台灣高鐵) customers said they were satisfied with its overall service this year, down from 53 percent last year, a survey showed yesterday.

The survey, conducted by the Consumers’ Foundation (消基會), also found that 66 percent of customers felt it was unreasonable that THSRC train ticket machines only accepted credit cards issued by three banks, Mega International Commercial Bank Co (兆豐商銀), Taipei Fubon Commercial Bank Co (台北富邦銀行) and Taishin International Bank (台新銀行), while users of other credit cards have to enter password for cash advance.

Time running out for taxes

The Ministry of Finance said yesterday that close to 40 percent of taxpayers had yet to file an income tax return this year. The deadline is Monday.

As the end of Tuesday, more than 3.12 million people had filed income tax, accounting for 60 percent of the 5 million taxpayers, the ministry said. People should file income tax returns no later than 8pm for income earned last year, the ministry said.

The ministry encouraged people to carry out their obligations online and said it was satisfied with the fact that the number of people filing on the Internet was up 40 percent from last year.

SinoPac, Taishin fined

The Financial Supervisory Commission yesterday fined Bank SinoPac (永豐銀行) and Taishin International Bank (台新銀行) NT$1 million and NT$4 million respectively for negligence in internal management.

Bank SinoPac was found to have invested NT$4.5 million in structured investment vehicles (SIVs), which had BBB- ratings, in December 2007, the commission said in a press conference yesterday.

Domestic banks are barred from taking up overseas investments below a BBB rating, a commission official told a media briefing yesterday.

Moreover, the bank had previously exceeded its 10 percent cap by investing US$3.39 million in SIVs, whose ratings were downgraded to BBB- on Dec. 4, 2007, the statement added.

Meanwhile, the commission yesterday said that Taishin had failed to improve internal management despite the bank being given a warning in May 2007 to prevent its employees from leaking clients’ financial statements to the media.

NT dollar gains on greenback

The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, rising NT$0.010 to close at NT$32.650.

A total of US$1.72 billion changed hands during the day’s trading.
This story has been viewed 933 times.