TAIEX up nearly 2%
The TAIEX closed up 1.94 percent yesterday in heavy trade to end the session above the 7,900 point mark as bargain-hunting emerged to boost the financial sector, riding high liquidity, dealers said.
The weighted index rose 151.05 points to 7,911.68 after moving between 7,829.19 and 7,917.95, on turnover of NT$141.89 billion (US$4.44 billion).
The market opened up 0.88 percent and the momentum extended as financial stocks turned active on market speculation that select small and medium-sized financial institutions will soon announce acquisition deals amid an industrial consolidation, dealers said.
The buying was also boosted by strong performances in several other markets in the region as investors shrugged off last week’s reports of slower-than-expected second quarter growth in the US.
The financial sector saw the highest gains of the day at 3.6 percent.
TSMC makes big purchase
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), the world’s largest custom manufacturer of chips, bought NT$3.5 billion of equipment from two vendors.
The company purchased NT$3 billion of new equipment from Muratec Automation Taiwan Ltd and NT$532 million from Applied Materials South East Asia Pacific Ltd, the company said in two separate filings with the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
Solar cell maker gets loan
Taiwan’s biggest solar cell maker, Gintech Energy Corp (昱晶), yesterday secured a syndicated loan of NT$6.5 billion comprised from 11 banks, the company said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
The company planned to use the proceeds to expand its capacity in order to be able to adequately handle rising customer demand, it said.
The capital will mainly be channeled into a new factory, located in southern Hsinchu, where the groundbreaking ceremony took place on July 6.
The new plant is scheduled for completion within three to four years. It has a maximum capacity of 1.35GW.
Adding in the capacity from the other two plants, Gintech foresees a total capacity of 2.2GW by 2013.
Formosa wants to defer imports
Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化), the nation’s only publicly traded oil refiner, wants to defer some imports of naphtha and sour, or high-sulfur, crude after two accidents at its Mailiao plants last month.
“Our storage tanks are full,” spokesman Lin Keh-yen (林克彥) said by telephone in Taipei yesterday, declining to give any further details.
Formosa plans to restart a second crude processing unit at Mailiao this week, after production at the first unit resumed last week, Lin said.
The refiner had shut its 540,000 barrel-a-day Mailiao plant for safety reasons after an oil leak triggered a blaze at its No. 2 residual desulfurization unit on July 25.
Formosa halted its No. 1 ethylene plant, which has an annual capacity of 700,000 tonnes, on July 7 after a fire.
Central Bank issues CDs
The central bank issued NT$206.9 billion in certificates of deposit yesterday, less than the NT$225.45 billion that matured, the bank said in a statement on its Web site.
The central bank sold 30-day certificates of deposit at an interest rate of 0.63 percent, 91-day at 0.67 percent, and 182-day at 0.77 percent, said the statement.
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