Caution drags TAIEX down
Stocks fell yesterday, with traders cautious before most listed companies disclose their June revenue figures and second-quarter earnings.
Taiwan Semiconductor Man-ufacturing Co (台積電), the main board's biggest stock by capitalization, also weighed on the market ahead of its issue of 1.47 billion dividend shares tomorrow.
The TAIEX lost 39.16 points, or 0.6 percent, to close at 6,232.04, its intraday low. Turnover totaled NT$68.18 billion (US$2.1 billion), up from Monday but still relatively thin, with some foreign investors on a summer break.
"Taiwan Semiconductor pulled the entire index down, as investors expect the share price to drop ahead of Thursday's [common share] issuance," senior trader Diana Wu of Capital Securities Corp (群益證券) said.
United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) lost 1.7 percent to NT$23.10.
Foreign exchange reserves up
The nation's foreign exchange reserves rose to a record US$253.62 billion at the end of June, the central bank said yesterday. Reserves totalled US$253.17 billion at the end of May and US$252.64 billion at the end of April, the central bank said in a statement.
The increase reflected returns from foreign exchange reserve management, the statement said.
Yieh United to cut output
Yieh United Steel Corp (燁聯), Asia's second-biggest manufacturer of stainless steel, plans to cut output by 30 percent this month in a move that will reduce its need for nickel, used to make the corrosion-resistant alloy.
The company will reduce stainless-steel production by more than 20,000 tonnes this month to stop prices falling, said Wang Yin-chen, an assistant vice president at Yieh United, based in Kaohsiung. The company has an annual capacity of 1 million tonnes, or about 83,000 tonnes a month, Wang said. He didn't give current output levels.
"By cutting production, we hope to dispel the expectation that prices will continue to fall," he said yesterday.
Global stainless steel prices have declined by more than 10 percent since the beginning of May, after distributors built up excessive inventories, he said.
Prices have also fallen on rising supplies from China.
CPC eyes Middle East
Chinese Petroleum Corp (中油) may consider building a petrochemical plant in the Middle East after Taiwanese citizens protested against a plan to expand its current domestic facility, a Chinese-language newspaper reported, citing Chairman Kuo Chin-tsai (郭進財).
About 60 to 70 people gathered outside the company's No. 3 naphtha cracker plant in Kaohsiung County after a fire broke out on Friday, demanding relocation of the plant and voicing opposition to the company's plan to expand the facility, spokesman Liao Tsang-long (廖滄龍) said yesterday.
Asustek, Sony deal reported
Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦) obtained desktop-computer orders from Japan's Sony Corp, a Chinese-language newspaper reported, without saying where it got the information. Shipments are expected to begin in the second half of this year, the Taipei-based newspaper said. There is no information on the order amount, according to the report.
Asustek is the nation's largest motherboard-maker and it also makes and sells desktop and notebook computers.
Worldwide shipments of personal computers are expected to rise 10.2 percent to 202.1 million this year, market researcher Gartner Inc said on May 26. Mobile PC shipments are likely to grow 26.5 percent, while desktop units will advance 4.6 percent, Gartner said.
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