Share prices ended slightly higher yesterday, with construction stocks leading the gains, while profit-taking in technology issues limited the market's rise, analysts said.
The TAIEX finished the session 22.05 points, or 0.3 percent, higher at 6,545.54.
Turnover was NT$120.46 billion (US$3.65 billion), compared with the previous session's NT$128.86 billion.
Construction stocks closed 3.1 percent higher on hopes that sales of new houses, depressed by political uncertainties, will soon recover, analysts said.
Huaku Construction Corp (
Electronics shares were off 0.1 percent overall, partly due to strength in the NT dollar, which ended at NT$32.95 against the US dollar on Thursday -- its highest level in more than 34 months.
Profit-taking following this week's gains also hurt technology shares, said Richard Tsai, Grand Cathay Securities Co' (
``There is also the weekend effect,'' said Tsai, referring to what he called a typical reluctance among investors to avoid holding large positions at the end of Friday trading.
After the rise of more than 400 points over the past week, the index is most likely to trade between 6,350 and 6,650 next week, Tsai said.
Among the sharpest losers, flat screen maker AU Optronics Corp (
Financial shares fared relatively well, rising 0.8 percent overall.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
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