TAIEX drops 1.08 percent
Share prices closed lower yesterday, with the TAIEX index falling 88.02 points, or 1.08 percent, to close at 8,029.73.
The local bourse opened slightly down at 8,090.54 and fluctuated between 8,022.94 and 8,104.14 during the day’s trading. Market turnover totaled NT$103.15 billion (US$3.27 billion).
All eight major stock categories lost ground, with construction shares dropping the most at 2.6 percent. Losers outnumbered gainers 2,402 to 807, with 198 stocks remaining unchanged.
Foreign investors and Chinese qualified domestic institutional investors were net buyers of NT$1.39 billion in shares.
Government sells bonds
The government sold NT$40 billion (US$1.3 billion) of five-year bonds at a yield of 1.007 percent in an auction yesterday, the central bank said.
The sale of the securities maturing in January 2015 attracted bids for 1.93 times the amount of debt on offer, the central bank said in a statement.
The government last sold the same bonds in January, at a yield of 0.979 percent. That offer garnered a bid-to-cover ratio of two times.
Companies back ECFA in ad
Four companies from the local traditional manufacturing sector — Giant Manufacturing Co (巨大機械), Chmer (慶鴻機電), Ho Yu Textile Co (和友紡織) and Fu Chu Knitting Co (福助針織) — voiced support in a promotional TV commercial for an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with Beijing.
Entrepreneurs from the companies lent their faces and voices to the commercial, which was produced by the government and aired yesterday for the first time, to show the companies’ support for the ECFA, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement.
In the commercial, the four companies said the ECFA would increase Taiwanese firms’ competitiveness and allow them to keep production facilities in Taiwan.
Giant is the world’s biggest maker of bicycles, selling its wares under the “Giant” brand (捷安特), while Chmer produces machinery automation systems for drilling or wire cutting.
Ho Yu is a professional manufacturer of apparel and technical fabrics, while Fu Chu produces stockings under the Vogmate (華貴) brand.
Computer show sets record
A five-day spring computer show in Taipei ended on Monday after attracting a record number of visitors, the organizer said.
The Taipei Computer Association (TCA, 台北市電腦公會) said this year’s visitor number of 437,000 marked a 20 percent increase from last year, while sales by participating manufacturers grew 30 percent.
TCA officials said notebooks, digital cameras and smartphones were the mainstays of this year’s show, adding that sellers “could hardly meet demand” for HTC’s (宏達電) Legend smartphone.
CPC cracker restart delayed
State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) plans to restart its No. 4 naphtha cracker in Kaohsiung on April 15 after maintenance.
The resumption of operations at the plant was delayed from yesterday because “customers have enough supplies,” CPC vice president Lin Maw-wen (林茂文) said by telephone.
The unit was shut on April 5 to coincide with the shutdown of a local electricity network owned by Taiwan’s monopoly power grid operator, he said last week.
NT dollar sheds NT$0.02
The New Taiwan dollar lost ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, declining NT$0.02 to close at NT$31.580. Turnover was US$635 million.
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