TAIEX rises slightly
Shares closed little changed yesterday in moderate trade as investors locked in early gains driven by the overnight strength in US equities, especially technology bellwethers on the NASDAQ, dealers said.
The TAIEX was up 5.90 points at 7,086.74, on turnover of NT$85.86 billion (US$2.59 billion).
Declines led risers 765 to 362, with 155 stocks unchanged.
The market is expected to move between 6,900 points and 7,100 points next week, dealers said.
For the week ending yesterday, the weighted index closed up 47.37 points or 0.67 percent after a 0.53 percent decline a week earlier.
Average daily turnover stood at NT$81.72 billion, compared with NT$81.97 billion a week ago.
SinoPac buys back shares
SinoPac Holdings (永豐金控) said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday that it has bought back 18.5 million shares for NT$300.1 million with an average cost of NT$16.22 per share.
Shares slid marginally 0.3 percent to close at NT$16.65 on the main bourse yesterday.
The volume of buyback is equivalent to a 2 percent stake in the ninth-biggest financial holding firm in terms of assets, the filing read.
For the first nine month of this year, SinoPac Holdings generated net income of NT$4.22 billion, or NT$0.6 per share.
GE buys Diamond Flower stake
General Electric Co (GE) bought a 5.26 percent stake in Diamond Flower Electric Instrument Co (友通資訊) for NT$347 million, adding industrial-computer operations.
General Electric bought 5.7 million Diamond Flower shares from chairman Lu Yen-chi (呂衍奇) after the market closed on Thursday, said Baker Tu (涂瑞勝), finance director of the Taipei-based electronics company.
Tu said the shares were purchased at NT$60.90 each, or 1.9 percent less than the stock's price of NT$62.1 at the close of trading on Thursday.
Diamond Flower posted a profit of NT$232 million in the first half of this year, up 98 percent from the NT$117 million it recorded a year earlier, according to a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Tu said Lu still has a stake of "more than 10 percent" after the GE purchase.
Chunghwa posts Q3 loss
Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), the nation's largest phone operator, had a 13.4 percent decline in third-quarter profit on increased expenses related to its early retirement program and network spending.
Net income fell to NT$12 billion, from NT$14 billion a year earlier, according to figures that were derived by subtracting first-half earnings from nine-month results provided by the company yesterday.
Net income for the nine months to last month fell 10.5 percent from a year earlier to NT$34.17 billion, the company said. Its earnings per share fell to NT$3.52 from NT$3.87 a year ago, it said.
In the nine months, the company registered NT$44.10 billion in pretax profit, compared with NT$47.49 billion a year earlier, while its sales rose to NT$137.49 billion from NT$136.92 billion a year ago.
NT dollar trades lower
The New Taiwan dollar traded lower against its US counterpart yesterday due to greenback demand from importers and insurers, dealers said.
The nation's currency declined NT$0.015 to close at NT$33.280 per US dollar on the Taipei Forex Inc. Yesterday's turnover was US$815 million.
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