TAIEX rises 1.32 percent
Taiwanese shares closed up 1.32 percent yesterday, tracking gains on Wall Street and regional markets, dealers said.
The TAIEX index rose 98.07 points to 7,536.05 on turnover of NT$146.02 billion (US$4.57 billion).
Gainers led losers by 1,783 to 748 with 238 stocks unchanged.
The market rose on gains in Wall Street and Asian bourses as well as a stronger local currency against the US dollar, Capital Securities trader Diana Wu said.
“Some are concerned about the impact of the rising Taiwan dollar on technology companies, but other currencies ... are also rising, so it may not necessarily hurt Taiwan’s competitiveness,” she said.
CPC may use various currencies
State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said it was studying whether to use a basket of currencies to pay for crude oil purchases.
“Our finance department is studying where to use a variety of currencies, including the yen, the euro and the dollar, for crude oil trade, compared with only the dollar now,” CPC vice president Lin Maw-wen (林茂文) said in a telephone interview yesterday. “Our purchases are relatively small, so we’ll just follow the trend.”
Criticism of the US dollar’s role as the world’s main reserve currency has grown in the wake of the global financial crisis. Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化), CPC’s smaller rival, has been using euros and yen to pay for crude oil purchases from Iran, Lin Keh-yen (林克彥), a spokesman for the Taiwanese refiner, said by telephone.
THSRC holiday volume rises
Taiwan High Speed Rail Co (THSRC, 台灣高鐵) said in a statement yesterday that passenger volume rose 20 percent during the Mid-Autumn Festival between last Friday and Monday from last year.
THSRC added 29 trains over the holiday period to carry an extra 71,000 passengers, the statement said, adding that all trains arrived at their destinations on time.
Passengers totaled more than 430,000 during the four days with 539 trains in service, the statement said, putting the load factor at 53.05 percent, up 5.5 percentage points from last year.
The company encouraged passengers to make reservations, saying doing so online can get a 5 percent discount.
WiMAX trial run in Hsinchu
Local WiMAX license holder Global Mobile Corp (全球一動) introduced on Monday its first WiMAX trial-run service in Hsinchu, with an official commercial launch in January at the latest.
The company said 70 percent of the base station’s deployment was completed.
At present, it covers more than 70 percent of the population there and it aims to extend the coverage to 95 percent before the commercial rollout.
The company said it will launch more exciting applications to attract subscribers, in addition to the main selling point of fast Internet connection.
Companies such as Vmax Telecom Co (威邁思), Vee Telecom Multimedia Co (威達超舜) and Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信), the nation’s No. 3 mobile carrier, are also expected to launch WiMAX services by the end of the year or early next year.
NT dollar gains on greenback
The NT dollar gained ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, rising NT$0.075 to close at NT$32.180.
A total of US$1.39 billion changed hands during the day’s trading.
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
PRESSURE EXPECTED: The appreciation of the NT dollar reflected expectations that Washington would press Taiwan to boost its currency against the US dollar, dealers said Taiwan’s export-oriented semiconductor and auto part manufacturers are expecting their margins to be affected by large foreign exchange losses as the New Taiwan dollar continued to appreciate sharply against the US dollar yesterday. Among major semiconductor manufacturers, ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光), the world’s largest integrated circuit (IC) packaging and testing services provider, said that whenever the NT dollar rises NT$1 against the greenback, its gross margin is cut by about 1.5 percent. The NT dollar traded as strong as NT$29.59 per US dollar before trimming gains to close NT$0.919, or 2.96 percent, higher at NT$30.145 yesterday in Taipei trading
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