Shares gain on Wall Street rally
Share prices closed up 0.49 percent yesterday led by cement and construction shares, following Wall Street’s overnight rally, dealers said.
The weighted index rose 34.55 points to 7,069.51 on turnover of NT$124.52 billion (US$3.89 billion).
Gainers led losers 1,243 to 1,118 with 192 stocks unchanged.
“Reconstruction efforts [in the wake of Typhoon Morakot] are a must and investors see a tangible benefit” to construction and cement stocks, said Andrew Teng of Taiwan International Securities.
Both sectors were boosted after the government announced it was planning a special budget of NT$70 billion for post-typhoon reconstruction.
No change to fuel prices
Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday it will keep its gasoline and diesel prices unchanged next week due to the widespread devastation brought by Morakot.
On Thursday, state-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said its fuel prices would not changed next week.
Telecom cables restored
Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co said its mobile phone and Internet services are operating normally after cables damaged by Morakot were repaired.
Network capacity on international calls and broadband services have been fully restored, Philippine Long Distance and unit Smart Communications Inc said in separate statements yesterday.
Damaged undersea cables in systems that pass through Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore disrupted services, the company said on Wednesday.
TSMC buying equipment
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the largest maker of chips designed by other companies, has bought NT$564 million of equipment from Tokyo Electron Ltd, the company said in an exchange filing yesterday.
The announcement came after the Hsinchu-based company bought NT$1.3 billion of equipment from Dainippon Screen Manufacturing Co earlier this month and NT$708 million of gear from Verigy Ltd. It has also acquired machinery worth NT$1 billion from Japan’s Tokyo Electron Ltd, NT$630.9 million worth of gear from Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates Inc and bought NT$2.45 billion worth of equipment from ASML Hong Kong Ltd.
Delta Electronics hiring
Delta Electronics (Thailand) Pcl, a Thai unit of Taiwan’s Delta Electronics Inc (台達電), expects profit to increase in the second half of the year from the first six months as it hires more employees to meet rising demand.
Delta is also “finalizing” plans to acquire two companies in the electronics sector in the US and Europe this year, executive director Anusorn Muttaraid said yesterday in Bangkok. He didn’t elaborate on the proposed acquisitions.
“The second quarter was the worst for us,” he said.
Sales and profit will improve in the third and fourth quarters as “orders have picked up,” he said.
The Bangkok-based company’s profit slumped 52 percent in the second quarter to 300.9 million baht (US$8.8 million) from a year earlier, the company said in a filing to the Thai stock exchange
The company cut its forecast for sales this year to US$900 million from a previous target of US$1.1 billion, Anusorn said.
NT dollar rises
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, rising NT$0.003 to close at NT$32.895. Turnover was US$486 million.
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