TAIEX closes little changed
The TAIEX closed little changed yesterday after profit-taking emerged, focusing on textile, food and transport stocks, to reverse early gains on Wall Street’s recovery overnight, dealers said.
The TAIEX fell 6.99 points or 0.08 percent to 7,924.10, after moving between 7,897.18 and 7,983.76, on turnover of NT$134.55 billion (US$4.21 billion).
The market opened up 0.60 percent after Wall Street staged a 1 percent rebound overnight, and moved to the day’s high before investors locked in recent gains — especially in the old economy sector — amid hopes that the local economy would benefit from increasing cross-strait business, dealers said.
A total of 2,204 stocks closed down and 1,495 up, with 363 remaining unchanged.
HK firm touts Taiwanese funds
A mutual fund company in Hong Kong yesterday recommended that investors buy Taiwanese funds to capitalize on Taiwan’s growth potential after the cross-strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) takes effect.
In an article published in the Wen Wei Po daily, Pegasus Fund Managers suggested that investors put out their feelers by buying into Taiwanese funds. If there is further progress in Taiwan’s effort to sign free-trade agreement (FTAs) with other countries, investors can increase their purchases for long-term investment, the company said.
Local bank talks China co-op
Taiwan Cooperative Bank (合作金庫銀行) said yesterday it was in early talks with four Chinese banks on strategic cooperation, chairman Liu Deng-cheng (劉燈城) was quoted as saying in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.
Liu, who recently returned from a trip to China, did not specify the names of the four Chinese banks, but he hinted that they were state-run banks and city commercial lenders, according to the report published on the Wall Street Journal Web site.
China accused of dumping
China Steel Corp (中鋼), Taiwan’s biggest maker of the metal, said some Chinese rivals were dumping products overseas, creating a “chaotic” export market and depressing prices.
“Some second-tier, third-tier steel companies in China are dumping products overseas, trying to get cash to survive,” China Steel executive vice president Chung Le-min (鍾樂民) said yesterday.
Kaohsiung-based China Steel sells about 25 percent of its products overseas.
Slowing steel demand in China, the largest consumer of the metal, led 40 percent of mills to put plants on maintenance or curb output, the China Iron and Steel Association said this month.
Gintech to buy Taipei office
Gintech Energy Corp’s (昱晶) board approved a plan to buy an office space and 15 parking units in Taipei for no more than NT$300 million, the Miaoli-based company said in an exchange filing yesterday.
Gintech is the nation’s second-biggest solar cell maker.
Separately, Chi Mei Materials Technology Corp (奇美材料科技) received NT$4 billion in loans from a group of banks led by the state-run Land Bank of Taiwan (土地銀行), the Ministry of Finance said in a statement on its Web site yesterday.
Chi Mei Materials is a subsidiary of the Tainan-based Chi Mei Group (奇美集團).
NT dollar rises slightly
The New Taiwan dollar rose against the US dollar yesterday, up NT$0.004, to close at NT$31.966.
Turnover totaled US$625 million during the trading session.
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