Wall Street gains boost TAIEX
The TAIEX closed up 0.37 percent yesterday as buying ignited by overnight Wall Street gains rotated to the bellwether electronics sector, dealers said.
The TAIEX rose 32.70 points to 8,860.49, after moving between 8,834.32 and 8,865.42, on turnover of NT$129.99 billion (US$4.35 billion).
The market opened up 0.22 percent as investors took cues from Wall Street’s more-than two-year overnight high and bargain hunting focused on select high-tech stocks to push the index to the day’s high, dealers said.
However, institutional investors cut their holdings in old economy stocks to compromise the early gains ahead of the nearest technical resistance at 8,900 points, they said.
The machinery and electronics sector scored the highest gains, ending up 0.7 percent. Cement stocks rose 0.3 percent, financial stocks added 0.2 percent and the paper and pulp sector closed up 0.1 percent.
A total of 2,424 stocks closed up and 1,833 were down with 380 remaining unchanged.
Cathay Real Estate buys plot
Cathay Real Estate Development Co (國泰建設) bought a 534 ping (1,762.2m2) plot of land in Taichung for NT$951 million, the company said in a statement to the stock exchange yesterday.
In other real-estate news, BES Engineering Corp (中華工程) won a bid for a construction project at the National United University for NT$388 million, BES said in a separate statement to the exchange.
SAS to list GlobiTech
Sino-American Silicon Products Inc (SAS, 中美晶) said on Tuesday it is planning to list Texas-based subsidiary GlobiTech Inc, with chairman Lu Ming-kuang (盧明光) saying he did not rule out having GlobiTech launch a primary listing on the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Lu said GlobiTech is expected to deliver a return on equity (ROE) of 20 percent this year and 35 percent next year.
SAS acquired financially troubled GlobiTech, a provider of silicon epitaxy products, for US$45 million in April 2008 and helped turned the company around to post net earnings of about US$1 million last year.
GlobiTech is expecting net income of US$11 million on sales of US$72 million this year, Lu said, predicting sales would rise to US$100 million next year.
Eslite eyes HK expansion
Eslite (誠品), one of Taiwan’s biggest bookstore chains, might expand its operations to Hong Kong in 2012, vice chairwoman Mercy Wu (吳旻潔) said on Tuesday.
The company will likely make a decision on the plan in the first quarter of next year, Wu said.
Talks have also begun on setting up more branches in major Chinese cities and the plans are expected to materialize in three to five years, she said.
Eslite operates 38 bookshops around Taiwan.
FSC approves Elpida’s TDRs
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) said yesterday it had approved an application from Japan-based memory-chip maker Elpida Memory Inc to list its Taiwan depositary receipts (TDRs) on the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
The Tokyo-listed Elpida is planning to issue 180 million to 200 million TDRs, each one of which will represent 0.05 common shares of the company.
If the TDR listing plan goes through, Elpida will become the first Japanese firm to issue depositary receipts in Taiwan.
NT dollar slides
The New Taiwan dollar fell against the US dollar yesterday, down NT$0.005 to close at NT$30.605. Turnover totaled US$825 million during the trading session.
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