Share prices closed 0.51 percent lower yesterday after Wall Street extended losses overnight ahead of the release of a series of US economic data and comments from US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, dealers said.
The market was also affected after Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was indicted for corruption, they said.
The weighted index lost 39.53 points at 7,736.83, off a high of 7,800.87 and a low of 7,725.81, on turnover of NT$81.05 billion (US$2.46 billion).
"The market extended its recent pattern of rangebound consolidation with a negative bias as people got ready for a market break of almost two weeks," SinoPac Securities (永豐金證券) assistant vice president Alvin Teng (鄧可欣) said.
Today is the last day of trading before the market closes for the Lunar New Year holidays. It reopens on Feb. 26.
Ma's indictment was expected to depress the market today, but his announcement that he would still run for the presidency would ease the blow, Mega Securities Corp (兆豐證券) assistant vice president Alex Huang (黃國偉) said.
Without the announcement, "The benchmark TAIEX may lose more than 100 points [today], with stocks related to investments in China likely to see the heaviest selling," Huang said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manu-facturing Co (台積電) fell NT$1.20 at NT$65.80 and United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) was down NT$0.45 at NT$19.95.
Makers of thin-film transistor LCD panels were mostly lower, while DRAM makers were largely higher. AU Optronics Corp (友達光電) was down NT$1.05 at NT$47.05 and Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子)fell NT$0.40 to NT$32.60.
EXTRATERRITORIAL REACH: China extended its legal jurisdiction to ban some dual-use goods of Chinese origin from being sold to the US, even by third countries Beijing has set out to extend its domestic laws across international borders with a ban on selling some goods to the US that applies to companies both inside and outside China. The new export control rules are China’s first attempt to replicate the extraterritorial reach of US and European sanctions by covering Chinese products or goods with Chinese parts in them. In an announcement this week, China declared it is banning the sale of dual-use items to the US military and also the export to the US of materials such as gallium and germanium. Companies and people overseas would be subject to
WORLD DOMINATION: TSMC’s lead over second-placed Samsung has grown as the latter faces increased Chinese competition and the end of clients’ product life cycles Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) retained the No. 1 title in the global pure-play wafer foundry business in the third quarter of this year, seeing its market share growing to 64.9 percent to leave South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co, the No. 2 supplier, further behind, Taipei-based TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said in a report. TSMC posted US$23.53 billion in sales in the July-September period, up 13.0 percent from a quarter earlier, which boosted its market share to 64.9 percent, up from 62.3 percent in the second quarter, the report issued on Monday last week showed. TSMC benefited from the debut of flagship
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