Taiwan Stock Exchange Corp (TWSE, 台灣證交所) and the Korea Exchange (KRX) on Friday launched a cross-border IT index at the annual meeting of the World Federation of Exchanges in Bangkok.
The Korea-Taiwan IT Premier is “the first step toward creating an index representing Asia,” KRX chairman and chief executive Chan Woo-jeong said in reference to the lack of a global index in the Asia-Pacific region, a news release issued by the TWSE said.
The index “provides the solution to leveraging each other’s strengths to attract global capital investment in the two markets,” TWSE president Lee Chi-hsien (李啟賢) said.
The product-driven index consists of the premier IT stocks that investors prefer and provides a risk-hedge tool for investors, Chan said, emphasizing its points of attraction for global investors.
Only companies that have already issued single stock futures and have a free-floating adjusted market cap — the portion of its shares that are traded in the stock market — of more than US$2.5 billion have been selected.
The index is made up of 26 constituents, 17 of which are from Taiwan and nine from South Korea, and is worth US$582.4 billion, TWSE vice president Chien Lih-chung (簡立忠) said.
The top six constituents of the index are three Taiwanese companies — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Largan Precision Co (大立光) — and three South Korean companies: Samsung Electronics Co, SK Hynix Inc and Naver Corp.
The index is to be computed from the prices of the companies’ stocks and is to measure the value of the Taiwanese and South Korean IT markets, thereby giving global investors more opportunities to participate in the sector in both countries.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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