■ Shares slightly up
Shares closed 0.66 percent higher yesterday as bargain-hunting in bellwether technology stocks perked up a market that had been sluggish after Wall Street's mixed performance overnight, dealers said.
Local technology shares attracted fresh foreign investor support after gains in their New York listed peers, they said.
The TAIEX was up 48.21 points at 7,309.69, on turnover of NT$102.44 billion (US$3.11 billion). Risers led decliners 589 to 535, with 217 stocks unchanged.
■ CPC cuts gas prices
State-run Chinese Petroleum Corp (CPC, 中油) announced yesterday it would cut wholesale gasoline and diesel prices by NT$0.6 per liter. The new rates went into effect at 12am.
The adjusted retail prices for 98-octane unleaded gasoline is NT$27.6, 95-octane unleaded gasoline is NT$26.1, 92-octane unleaded gasoline is NT$25.4 and top-grade diesel oil is NT$22.1 per liter, CPC said in a statement.
■ China-bound investments up
The Investment Commission said yesterday it had approved 90 applications for China-bound investments totaling US$566.47 million last month, up 7.59 percent from a year earlier.
The commission also approved 30 non-China outbound investment applications worth US$156.76 million, down from US$177.67 million.
In the first 10 months to last month, the commission approved 879 China-bound investment applications worth US$5.89 billion, with a cumulative value up 24.79 percent year-on-year.
During the period, the commission approved 397 non-China outbound investment applications worth US$2.86 billion, up 41.82 percent from last year.
■ Mega to buy TBB shares
State-controlled Mega Financial Holding Co (兆豐金控), the nation's third-largest financial group, decided yesterday to partake in Taiwan Business Bank's (TBB, 臺灣企銀) recapitalization program in proportion to its shareholdings in the smaller rival.
Mega Financial's board agreed yesterday to subscribe for 1.07 million TBB shares at NT$9.65 per share during the bank's NT$10 billion fundraising plan, which would in turn dilute the company's holdings to 13.44 percent from 14.38 percent originally, the company said in a statement.
The move will help Mega Financial reduce its holdings cost per share, the statement read.
Meanwhile, TBB is expected to garner extra interest income of NT$339 million after using the funds raised to finance its lending business, the company said.
■ Retailer makes costly error
Books.com.tw (博客來網路書店), the nation's largest online bookstore, yesterday morning placed incorrect prices on two types of memory cards, leading to a loss of up to NT$550,000.
The firm mistakenly marked the price of the 2GB memory card at NT$1,520 when it should have been sold at NT$3,830, a statement said. The price of the 1GB memory card was marked as NT$650, nearly half the market price of NT$1,520.
Within more than eight hours, nearly 300 orders were placed, with around two-thirds of the purchases made on 2GB cards, public relations official Chiang Lih-ying (江俐瑩) said.
The firm promised that it would honor these deals and absorb the losses incurred from pricing differences, she added.
■ NT rises against greenback
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against its US counterpart yesterday, climbing NT$0.063 to close at NT$32.873 on the Taipei foreign exchange market.
Turnover was US$769 million.
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