Share prices close higher
Shares closed 0.96 percent higher yesterday led by financials and asset-related stocks, dealers said.
The TAIEX index rose 72.61 points to 7,608.66 on turnover of NT$160.94 billion (US$5 billion). Gainers outnumbered losers 1,560 to 1,089, while 186 shares remained unchanged.
“The market was healthy as the trading volume expanded in tandem with the rise,” Allen Lin of Concord Securities (康和證券) said.
The continued appreciation of the Taiwan dollar against the greenback also prompted investors to target asset-related stocks, Lin said.
TAIEX may be set for boost
The TAIEX may be boosted by 20 percent from current levels with closer China ties, a global economic recovery and likely “strong growth” in technology company earnings, JPMorgan Chase & Co said.
“With our view of a synchronized global economic recovery and recommendation for investors to focus on exports and technology sectors, we believe Taiwan is well positioned to benefit,” JPMorgan analysts, led by Nick Lai (賴以哲), said in a report.
The brokerage offered no timeframe for the forecast advance.
JPMorgan forecasts Taiwan GDP growth will rise 10.1 percent in the first quarter of next year from a decline 10.2 percent in the first quarter of this year.
It anticipates annual growth of 5.5 percent in Taiwan next year and 3.2 percent in the US.
The brokerage said it retained its overweight stance on the technology industry, where almost all the sectors could deliver “strong growth”.
The report said that the industry had cut expenses aggressively from 2007 to the first half of this year. This will boost profitability and margins next year, when the economy recovers, it said.
Yuanta to sell warrants today
Yuanta Securities Corp (元大證券) is slated to begin sales of warrants today — the first of its kind, which are lined to Taiwan Depository Receipts (TDRs) issued by two popular companies Want Want China Holdings Ltd (中國旺旺控股) and Ju Teng International Holdings Ltd (巨騰), the securities brokerage firm said in a press statement yesterday.
Such warrants will cost investors one fifth of the price of TDRs issued by these two companies, but reward investors with a similar gain, the statement added. For example, Ju Teng TDRs are closed at more than NT$40,000 each, but its warrants only cost one fifth each, it said.
After the listing of Want Want’s and Ju Teng’s TDRs has respectively gained 50 percent and 264 percent since early this year, Yuanta expects its sales of warrants will also see a boon this quarter as more overseas Taiwanese companies go public on the local market, the statement said.
NT dollar unchanged
The New Taiwan dollar remained unchanged against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, closing at NT$32.180. Turnover was US$1.05 billion.
The NT dollar will appreciate 5.9 percent by the end of next year to NT$30.40 as international funds increase investment in Taiwanese equities and exports pick up, Credit Suisse Group AG said.
“Continued positive equity sentiment and the medium-term outlook for further export recovery would suggest that Taiwan’s balance of payments should remain strongly positive, which will put upward pressure on the Taiwan dollar,” Joseph Lau, a Hong Kong-based economist at Credit Suisse, wrote in a research note yesterday.
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