Share prices close lower
Taiwanese share prices closed 1.24 percent lower yesterday as dealers took further profits following a lengthy rally last week, dealers said.
The TAIEX index fell 92.27 points to 7,376.76 on turnover of NT$127.65 billion (US$3.95 billion).
Losers outnumbered gainers 2,041 to 528, while 135 shares remained unchanged. A total of 24 stocks fell to their daily 7.0 percent limit, against nine limit-up.
“It’s time for the market to take a breather after such a big rally,” said David Li (李衍磐), sales trader at Daiwa Securities SMBC-Cathay Co (大和國泰).
Taiwanese stocks have fallen for the past three days after rising 2.58 percent last week.
Government plans bonds sale
The government is planning to sell NT$140 billion (US$4.3 billion) in bonds in the fourth quarter to help fund spending, NT$40 billion more than was sold in the final three months of last year.
Taiwan will auction NT$30 billion in five-year notes on Oct. 5, NT$40 billion in two-year securities on Oct. 16, NT$30 billion of 20-year debt on Nov. 17, and NT$40 billion in 10-year bonds on Dec. 11, a statement posted on the Ministry of Finance’s Web site said yesterday.
The government will also sell NT$125 billion of Treasury bills in the period.
Remittances increase gradually
Remittances to Taiwan from Taiwanese listed and over-the-counter (OTC) companies that have business operations in China have increased gradually over the last four years, the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) reported on Tuesday.
As of the end of June, 928 Taiwanese listed and OTC companies had invested in China, representing 72.5 percent of all listed and OTC companies in Taiwan, with their combined investments totaling NT$899.6 billion (US$27.68 billion), FSC tallies showed.
In the second quarter of this year, the 928 firms had remitted NT$81.3 billion of their profits, marking a 9.04 percent ratio of their combined investments.
This was higher than the ratio of 8.56 percent posted in the previous quarter and 8.51 percent recorded in the last quarter of last year, the FSC tallies show.
Electronics and computer companies, which comprise the bulk of Taiwanese companies operating in China, were the biggest remitters, the FSC said.
Taiwan set to buy US produce
Taiwan is set to purchase US$3.5 billion worth of farm products from the US, officials at Taiwan’s representative office in Washington said.
A Taiwanese procurement mission, led by former minister of the Council of Agriculture Sun Ming-hsien (孫明賢), were to meet with US congressmen and visit relevant federal agencies before signing a letter of intent yesterday to buy agricultural goods in the next two years.
This is the seventh such Taiwanese mission to the US since 1998.
Beginning today, the delegation will split up into two groups, with one focusing on the procurement of soy beans and the other on sweet corn and wheat.
The first group will visit the states of Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Missouri, while the second will go to Kansas, North Dakota, Montana and California to appraise the crops they are interested in buying.
NT dollar ends day higher
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, rising NT$0.017 to close at NT$32.369.
Turnover was US$748 million.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Taiwan has enough crude oil reserves for more than 100 days and sufficient natural gas reserves for more than 11 days, both above the regulatory safety requirement, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, adding that the government would prioritize domestic price stability as conflicts in the Middle East continue. Overall, energy supply for this month is secure, and the government is continuing efforts to ensure sufficient supply for next month, Kung told reporters after meeting with representatives from business groups at the ministry in Taipei. The ministry has been holding daily cross-ministry meetings at the Executive Yuan to ensure
Property transactions in the nation’s six special municipalities plunged last month, as a lengthy Lunar New Year holiday combined with ongoing credit tightening dampened housing market activity, data compiled by local land administration offices released on Monday showed. The six cities recorded a total of 10,480 property transfers last month, down 42.5 percent from January and marking the second-lowest monthly level on record, the data showed. “The sharp drop largely reflected seasonal factors and tighter credit conditions,” Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) deputy research manager Chen Chin-ping (陳金萍) said. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday fell in February this year, reducing