Shares close down
Taiwan share prices closed down 0.32 percent yesterday amid cautious sentiment following a recent strong showing, dealers said.
The TAIEX index fell 24.09 points to 7,502.46 on turnover of NT$123.46 billion (US$3.81 billion).
Losers led gainers by 1,229 to 1,193, with 197 stocks unchanged.
The market opened flat and consolidated throughout the trade, with many investors taking to the sidelines on fears that a possible major correction would send share prices into a tailspin, dealers said.
Foreign institutional investors were net sellers of NT$2.30 billion in shares, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
China consumption to rise
Household spending in China will rise as the government spends 4 trillion yuan (US$586 billion) to stimulate the economy, MasterCard Inc said.
About 41 percent of urban households and 59 percent of rural ones plan to increase spending in the next 12 months, compared with the previous year, MasterCard said, citing a survey of 6,300 respondents.
“The short-to-medium term income and employment stimulus may well develop into longer term structural improvement that supports [a] higher level of household spending,” said Yuwa Hedrick-Wong (王月魂), an economic adviser at MasterCard Worldwide.
TSMC reveals spending
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest custom-chip maker, spent NT$1.34 billion on factory facilities and equipment, it said yesterday.
TSMC spent NT$709 million on machinery from Tokyo Electron Ltd and NT$632 million on facilities and engineering equipment from Fu Tsu Construction Co, the firm said in separate exchange filings.
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s second-largest custom-chip maker, bought NT$904 million in equipment from Applied Materials Asia Pacific Inc and NT$810 million in gear from Lam Research International, UMC said yesterday.
Yahoo aims for more users
Yahoo Inc, owner of the second-most popular US search engine, expects to increase unique users of its e-mail service by at least 10 percent this year, said John Kremer, vice president of Yahoo Mail.
The Sunnyvale, California-based company has about 304 million unique mail users globally, trailing Microsoft Corp, which has about 330 million, Kremer said in an interview in Taipei yesterday.
Yahoo, which trails Google Inc in the market for search engine usage, plans to introduce a new marketing campaign this week, a source said.
Sunny Bank rating upgraded
Taiwan Ratings Corp yesterday said it had revised its long-term outlook for Sunny Bank (陽信商銀) to stable from negative.
The revision mainly reflects Taiwan Ratings’ expectation that Sunny Bank will generate positive pre-loan-loss-provision profit, though at a marginal level, in the second half of the year, compared with the losses in the first half.
“The bank’s profitability is likely to gradually pick up over the next one to two years given a more stable operating environment and the bank’s proactive adjustments on deposit mix and loan portfolio,” Taiwan Ratings said.
The agency affirmed its ‘twBBB’ long-term counterparty credit rating and ‘twA-3’ short-term rating, the statement said.
NT dollar gains ground
With stocks attracting foreign funds, the New Taiwan dollar rose against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, rising NT$0.039 to close at NT$32.419. Turnover was US$700 million.
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