TAIEX falls 1.62 percent
Taiwanese shares closed 1.62 percent lower yesterday, taking their cue from the weakness in Wall Street and regional markets, dealers said.
The weighted index was down 80.13 points to 4,862.59 on turnover of NT$47.04 billion (US$1.43 billion).
Losers outnumbered gainers 1,165 to 285, while 355 stocks were unchanged.
“Selling pressure was high following the open as investors took their cue from the overnight decline in the US and European markets amid growing fears of a global recession,” said Michael Hsu (許派一) of Taiwan Life Asset Management (台壽保投信).
Analysts said the market’s relatively marginal fall, compared with the 6.79 percent fall in Japan and the 5.1 percent decline in South Korea, was made possible by the buying of government funds and the cutting of stocks’ downward limit from 7 percent to 3.5 percent.
Cathay reveals Iceland links
Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控) said its banking unit has NT$780 million in investments linked to Iceland.
Cathay United Bank Co (國泰世華銀行) holds NT$438 million of debentures issued by Iceland banks and has extended loans of NT$294 million to the country’s banks as part of syndicated loans, Cathay Financial said in a statement to the stock exchange yesterday.
In a separate statement, Mega International Commercial Bank Co (兆豐國際商銀) has US$47.3 million in Iceland-linked securities, its parent Mega Financial Holding Co (兆豐金控) said in a stock exchange filing.
Yuanta Commercial Bank Co (元大商業銀行) has a US$5 million exposure to Iceland’s Kaupthing Bank, parent company Yuanta Financial Holding Co (元大金控) said in a stock exchange filling yesterday.
Yuanta Financial said the exposure came after its banking unit’s participation in a US$160 million syndicated loan to Kaupthing led by Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp of Japan, the statement showed.
Iceland is in talks with the IMF for a bailout after the collapse of its banking system froze the foreign-exchange market. The Atlantic country is the first Western country to seek IMF support since the UK in 1976.
China Steel says profit is fine
China Steel Corp (中鋼), Taiwan’s largest steelmaker, said its profit was “fine” and financial conditions are good, trying to reassure investors after its shares declined yesterday by the daily limit, their sixth straight drop.
Recent declines in the stock price were caused by sales by overseas investors, the Kaohsiung-based company said yesterday in a filing to the stock exchange, without giving details.
China Steel dropped by the daily limit of 3.5 percent to NT$23.7 in Taipei trading, worse than the 1.62 percent decline in the benchmark TAIEX.
Retail sector down 5.06 percent
Sales in Taiwan’s retail sector fell 5.06 percent last month from a year ago to NT$252.1 billion, the largest monthly drop in seven years, as the economic slowdown, typhoons and China’s tainted milk scandal weakened domestic consumption, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in its latest report yesterday.
Sales have posted four straight months of negative growth since June.
Sales in the restaurant sector fell 4.74 percent year-on-year to NT$24.3 billion, while those at wholesale sector rose 4.76 percent year-on-year to NT$756.7 billion.
Total domestic trade (including retail, wholesale and restaurant sectors) was NT$1.03 trillion last month, up 1.95 percent from a year earlier. The annual growth rate in the first nine months of the year was 6.48 percent.
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