Shares end flat
Shares ended flat yesterday, as declines in construction companies offset gains in flat-panel makers.
The TAIEX edged up 1.54 points, or 0.02 percent, to 6,660.61 on turnover of NT$73.16 billion (US$2.26 billion). The index ended 0.7 percent lower for the full week.
"There are signs the construction sector is overpriced, because it has had only a few corrections since it started to rise in April," said Diana Wu, a sales manager at Capital Securities Corp (群益證券).
The construction subindex fell 4.3 percent, making it the worst-performing sub-index on the main board.
Contract chip maker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) fell 0.4 percent to NT$56.9, after a 2.5 percent fall in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index overnight.
But smaller rival United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) rose 0.3 percent to NT$19.20.
Tang Eng debuts on GRETAI
After completion of its privatization, Tang Eng Iron Works Corp (唐榮鐵工廠) debuted on the over-the-counter GRETAI Securities Market yesterday at NT$13.5 (US$0.42) per share and saw shares rise by 0.48 percent to close at NT$20 at the end of the first day.
For the first half of the year, Tang Eng posted sales of NT$11.93 billion, a 0.18 percent decline from a year earlier. For the first six months of the year, it reported pre-tax earnings of NT$460 million, or NT$1.31 per share.
With paid-in capital of NT$3.5 billion, Tang Eng shed 49 million shares, or a 14 percent stake government stake, to the public last month to become a private firm.
Tang Eng produces 260,000 tonnes of stainless steel per year.
UMC reports sales rise
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world's second-largest contract microchip maker, said yesterday sales in June rose 3.29 percent to NT$8.78 billion (US$271 million) from NT$8.50 billion.
The June figure was up 32.94 percent from a year earlier, UMC said.
Sales for the first six months of the year rose to NT$50.13 billion from NT$39.73 billion in the same period a year earlier, the company said.
In the second quarter to June, parent sales stood at NT$25.75 billion, compared with NT$24.38 billion in the first quarter and NT$19.44 billion in the same period last year.
At an April 26 investor conference, UMC said its average selling price in US dollar terms was expected to rise by 2 percentage points in the second quarter to June from the preceding quarter.
It said at the time its second-quarter wafer shipments were expected to rise by 5 to 6 percentage points sequentially.
Buy Mitac, says Merrill Lynch
Mitac International Inc (神達), a Taiwanese maker of servers and desktop computers, was rated a "buy" in new coverage by Merrill Lynch & Co because of new orders.
The company will benefit from faster sales growth from personal navigation devices, servers and desktop computers, Tony Tseng, Merrill Lynch's Taipei-based analyst, wrote in a report released yesterday.
Mitac makes desktop and server computers for Dell Inc, servers for Hewlett-Packard Co and Sun Microsystems Inc as well as handheld global positioning systems under its own brand name Mio, Merrill said.
NT dollar gains on greenback
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against its US counterpart on the Taipei foreign exchange market yesterday, advancing NT$0.062 to close at NT$32.397.
A total of US$553 million changed hands during the day's trading.
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