Rebound boosts bourse
The local bourse staged a mild technical rebound yesterday from a slump seen a session earlier as profit-taking emerged to compromise early gains after the TAIEX briefly breached the 8,000 point level, dealers said.
The weighted index closed up 24.66 points, or 0.31 percent, at 7,894.36, on turnover of NT$147.58 billion (US$4.99 billion).
ProMOS to be delisted
Shares of ProMOS Technologies Inc (茂德科技), one of Taiwan’s memory chipmakers, will be forced by law to be delisted from the country’s over-the-counter (OTC) market from March 26, according to the Gretai Securities Market.
Gretai Securities, which operates the OTC market, yesterday said that the delisting order was issued because ProMOS’ book value fell into the red.
After suffering massive losses in the weakening global dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chip market, ProMOS’ book value stood at negative NT$2.01 per share at the end of the second quarter of last year, down from negative NT$0.22 per share a quarter earlier.
According to local securities regulations, once a listed company on the main board or in the OTC market registers a book value below zero, a delisting order will be issued by the authorities.
The move to delist ProMOS came only after a second consecutive quarter with a negative book value because the company only recently released financial data for the first half of last year to the exchange.
In the first six months of last year, ProMOS had a net loss of NT$8.68 billion, compared with a net loss of NT$4.08 billion recorded over the same period a year earlier.
At the end of June last year, ProMOS had NT$68.37 billion in total liabilities, including NT$49.82 billion in long-term debt with a maturity of more than one year.
HTC buys back 6.91m shares
HTC Corp (宏達電), the world’s No. 5 smartphone maker, yesterday said it has repurchased a total of 6.91 million shares, or 2.44 percent of the company’s total outstanding shares, from the open market for NT$3.75 billion during the period between Dec. 30 and Feb. 17, according to a company filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
The firm plans to transfer those shares as awards to employees.
Marco Polo drops TDR plan
Marco Polo Marine Limited (馬可波羅海業) submitted an application to the Taiwan Stock Exchange to withdraw a proposed Taiwan Depositary Receipts (TDR) issue. The application was approved by the Financial Supervisory Commission on Thursday.
The company said it has resolved to withdraw the application due to weak market conditions and sentiments.
NT dollar gains
The New Taiwan dollar rose against the greenback yesterday, up NT$0.052 to close at NT$29.583 as the local currency staged a rebound from the losses seen a session earlier, dealers said.
A rally on Wall Street overnight prompted investors in the local bourse to resume buying to boost demand for the local unit during the trading session, they said.
Turnover totaled US$839 million during the trading session.
As investors’ appetite to take risks in the equity markets expanded, they moved their funds out of the US dollar as a safe haven, a move that dragged down the value of the greenback against the currencies in the region, dealers added.
Since foreign investors are keeping their money in the local market, seeking more targets in the local bourse, the Taiwan dollar was able to maintain its strength against the greenback, dealers said.
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