■ Shares fall in light trade
Share prices closed 0.69 percent lower in light trade yesterday as profit-taking wiped out early gains, dealers said.
The TAIEX lost 46.33 points to close at 6,688.40, on turnover of NT$72.67 billion (US$2.22 billion).
Decliners led gainers 774 to 279, with 145 stocks unchanged.
Intel Corp's plan to cut about 10 percent of its workforce had given some support to hopes that local contract manufacturers would benefit from an increase in outsourcing from the chip giant.
Tom Tang (湯建源), president at Kai Yuan Securities Investment Consultant Co (開元投顧), said investors locked in profits at every opportunity and moved back to the sidelines on caution ahead of the latest anti-President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) protest.
■ S&P retains ratings
Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said on Tuesday that it has retained its sovereign ratings on Taiwan, supported by the nation's entrepreneurial economy, high domestic savings rate and its strong external balance sheet.
According to the semi-annual Asia-Pacific Sovereign Report Card, S&P maintained its AA- and A-1+ foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings on Taiwan with negative outlook that was downgraded from stable in November 2004.
However, persistent high budget deficits and a lack of political will to implement necessary fiscal reforms are weakening this support, S&P warned.
Continuing failure to address the deteriorating fiscal situation could eventually lead to a downgrade of Taiwan's credit ratings, the rating agency said.
Taiwan is expected to post a fiscal deficit amounting to 4 percent of the nation's GDP this year.
■ BenQ's sales up 79 percent
BenQ Corp's (明基) consolidated sales in August rose 79 percent to NT$16 billion (US$488 million) from a year earlier, the company said in a statement yesterday, without giving comparative figures. Revenue fell from NT$16.3 billion in July.
"Revenue in August declined month on month mainly from reduced shipments of optical disk drives," Eric Yu (游克用), BenQ's senior vice president of finance, said in a statement. Sales of projectors, computer monitors and handsets were "flat" compared with July, the statement said, without elaborating.
"We expect BenQ's main product lines such as LCD monitors, projectors and handsets to begin benefiting from a recovery in demand" in September, the statement said.
■ Foxconn downgraded
Shares of Foxconn International Holdings Ltd (富士康控股), the world's biggest contract maker of mobile phones, were downgraded to "neutral" from "overweight" at JPMorgan Chase & Co on increased competition.
"Further market share gain will become increasingly difficult," analysts Kevin Chang (張凱偉) and Charles Guo wrote in a report yesterday.
Foxconn International's share of the global market for contract manufacturing of handsets, is expected to peak next year at 48.5 percent, the analysts wrote.
Foxconn International's share of the contract manufacturing market is expected to rise to 38.3 percent by the end of this year from 28.5 percent last year, Chang and Guo wrote. The company's market share is expected rise to 48.5 percent next year and fall to 47.8 percent in 2008, the report said.
■ NT falls against greenback
The New Taiwan dollar remained weak against its US counterpart yesterday, declining NT$0.042 to close at NT$32.812 on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$733 million.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
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