Shares slip on profit-taking
Share prices closed 0.71 percent lower yesterday on profit-taking, dealers said.
The TAIEX dropped 52.54 points to 7,324.22 on turnover of NT$90.25 billion (US$2.79 billion).
Losers outnumbered gainers 1,578 to 776, while 217 shares remained unchanged.
The market opened slightly lower and stayed in negative territory during much of the trade. The market hit an intra-day low of 7,280.04 but was lifted by bargain hunting.
“This showed that investors have no desire of further dumping their shares after the market dropped from the intra-day high of 7,558 on Monday,” Allen Lin of Concord Securities (康和證券) said.
Chinese dominate ‘Forbes’ list
Chinese firms have maintained their dominance of the Asia-Pacific business scene, accounting for a third of a Forbes list of 50 large and profitable firms in the region that was released yesterday.
Sixteen companies from China were in the list this year, up from 13 last year and only five when the US business magazine first came out with its “Fabulous 50” compilation in 2005, a Forbes statement said.
“The mainland firms, together with five from Taiwan and three from Hong Kong account for almost half the entries, giving Greater China the biggest regional representation,” Forbes said.
Taiwan’s five firms put it in third, with Japan and Australia tied at fourth with four firms each, Forbes said.
FPG borrows US$200 million
Formosa Plastics Group (FPG, 台塑集團), the nation’s biggest diversified industrial company, borrowed US$200 million from a group of 12 banks for its US unit, lead lender Bank of Taiwan (臺灣銀行) said in a statement on its Web site yesterday.
The loans exceeded the US$180 million initially sought by the company, the statement said.
Meanwhile, FPG has not made any decision on building a stainless steel plant in Vietnam, Lee Chih-tsuen (李志村), a member of the group’s executive board, said yesterday. He declined to say if the company is studying the possibility of building such a plant.
The group will invest NT$100 billion building a plant that can produce 2 million tones of stainless steel annually, the Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported.
Epistar, Philips settle suit
Epistar Corp (晶元光電), a maker of light-emitting diodes, settled an intellectual-property dispute with Royal Philips Electronics NV’s Lumileds unit, the Hsinchu-based company said in an exchange filing yesterday.
Philips will license its patents to the Taiwanese chipmaker as part of the settlement, and that the two companies will withdraw the complaint, the statement said.
NT dollar weakens
The New Taiwan dollar weakened, snapping a three-day advance, amid speculation the central bank will intervene to curb gains that may prolong a slump in exports.
The NT dollar weakened 0.1 percent to NT$32.395 against its US counterpart as of 4pm, Taipei Forex Inc said. It touched NT$32.315 on Wednesday, the highest level since June 2.
During yesterday’s session, the central bank urged lenders to reduce their bets against the US dollar after the local currency reached a three-month high, two traders at foreign banks said.
“It’s become very normal for the central bank to show its concern to banks after the Taiwan dollar appreciates for a while,” said Tigr Cheng (程裕城), a strategist at Polaris Securities Co (寶來證券). “The central bank will probably keep the Taiwan dollar moving within a small range.”
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