Share prices rise 0.19 percent
Share prices closed higher yesterday, with the TAIEX moving up 15.39 points, or 0.19 percent, to close at 7,838.1. The local bourse opened at 7,824.74 and fluctuated between a low of 7,753.51 and a high of 7,856.31 during the day’s trading.
Market turnover totaled NT$105.48 billion (US$3.31 billion). Six of the eight major stock categories lost ground, with textile shares dropping the most at 0.67 percent.
Losers outnumbered gainers 1,933 to 1,096 with 280 stocks remaining unchanged. Foreign investors and Chinese QDIIs were net sellers of NT$2.32 billion-worth of shares.
‘No rush’ to re-categorize: FTSE
FTSE Group said it won’t “rush” to categorize Taiwan as a developed market, after the Chinese-language Economic Daily News said the country may be upgraded this year or in 2011, citing officials at the Taiwan Stock Exchange who weren’t unidentified.
Taiwan needs to improve the availability of its local currency and rules on stock borrowing, FTSE said. The outcome of the next review will be announced in September, and FTSE declined to be more specific on when Taiwan may be raised.
The London-based index compiler currently ranks Taiwan as an “advanced emerging” market and the nation is on the watch list for an upgrade. A higher ranking would help attract more investments that are benchmarked against FTSE’s indexes.
No change in NPL ratio
The nation’s 37 banks averaged a 1.13 percent ratio of non-performing loans (NPLs) as of the end of last month, which remained unchanged from the previous month, the Financial Supervisory Commission’s latest statistics showed yesterday.
Among them, 34 domestic banks maintained a NPL ratio of below 2.5 percent and two banks had a NPL ratio of between 2.5 percent and 5 percent while Chinfon Commercial Bank (慶豐商銀) still held the highest bad-loan ratio of 15.17 percent, the commission said.
Last month, the nation’s banking sector totaled NT$18.6 trillion (US$583.4 billion) in outstanding loans, down NT$8.7 billion month-on-month, Lin Tung-liang (林棟樑), deputy director of the commission’s banking bureau, told a media briefing.
“The pace of loan decline last month looked normal,” Lin said, expressing no concern over the sector’s loan growth.
The sector’s coverage ratio, however, improved to 91.22 percent last month, 0.97 percentage points from one month earlier, the commission’s statistics showed.
Credit card spending declined by NT$11.7 billion month-on-month to NT$123.3 billion in January “as many department stores ended their promotional sales in December,” Lin said.
Nanya to sell 2 billion shares
The board of Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技), the nation’s largest computer memory chipmaker, yesterday approved plans to sell not more than 2 billion new shares to raise funds to buy equipment, repay bank loans and increase working capital, the company said in a stock exchange filing.
The company did not specify the dollar terms of the share sale. But based on its closing share price Thursday of NT$30.90, Nanya could raise NT$61.80 billion (US$1.94 billion) from the offering.
New Taiwan dollar falls
The New Taiwan dollar lost ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange Thursday, declining NT$0.035 to close at NT$ 31.88. Turnover was US$1.025 billion.
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