TAIEX drops on China caution
Taiwanese shares closed 0.72 percent lower on caution ahead of high-level talks with China, dealers said. The weighted index dropped 56.02 points to 7,751.60 on turnover of NT$113.76 billion (US$3.52 billion).
The market hit an intra-day low of 7,724.58 points shortly after the opening on reports that state funds would release shares to the market before year’s end. Authorities dismissed the reports.
The market was pulled down at the close, led by financials and shares of Formosa Plastics Group, which lost 1.37 percent to NT$65. “Investors were cautious and opted to stay on the sidelines,” Capital Securities (群益證券) analyst Chen Yu-yu (陳育娛) said. Investors “felt there may not be much profit looking forward, so they preferred to reduce their holdings on profit-taking,” Chen said.
QDII rules may ease
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) may consider allowing qualified domestic institutional investors (QDII) authorized by the China Banking Regulatory Commission to invest in the TAIEX, chairman Sean Chen (陳冲) told the Chinese-language Economic Daily News yesterday.
The regulator didn’t elaborate. The report speculated that a maximum capital of NT$25 billion from China may be injected into the local bourse if the commission opens the door to 10 percent of their US$8 billion in funds.
Microchips get even smaller
Taiwan has developed tiny microchips that could lead to lighter and cheaper laptops or mobile phones, researchers and observers said yesterday. State-backed National Nano Device Laboratories (奈米元件實驗室) in Hsinchu said it had succeeded in packing more transistors into a smaller chip space than anyone else so far.
“Electronic gadgets like cellphones and laptops could become smaller, lighter and cheaper with this technology,” said Yang Fu-liang (楊富量), the lab’s chief.
Currently, laptops seldom weigh less than about 1.5kg, but the latest development could see notebook computers weighing as little as a 500g.
“It’s indeed the most advanced chip technology ever,” said Nobunaga Chai, an analyst at Digitimes, a Taipei-based industry publication.
The field Yang and his team are working on is called 16-nanometer technology, referring to the space between transistors on a chip. The smaller the space, the more transistors can be fitted on to the chip. An average human fingernail is 25 million nanometers thick. Researching new technologies at this microscopic level poses formidable challenges to scientists.
“Sixteen nanometers used to be considered the final frontier,” Yang said.
CAL may post profit next year
China Airlines (CAL, 華航), Taiwan’s largest air carrier, said it may post a profit next year as the global economy rebounds.
“We may have a chance to be profitable next year as the economic recovery boosts demand for our cargo and passenger services,” chairman Philip Wei (魏幸雄) told reporters in Taoyuan, where Taiwan’s biggest airport is located.
The company celebrated its 50th anniversary yesterday. CAL, based in Taipei, in October posted a third-quarter loss of NT$2.62 billion, narrower than the NT$5.88 billion deficit it reported a year earlier.
Improving cross- strait ties have allowed the company to add more China flights, offsetting a global slump in passenger and air-cargo demand.
Local currency weakens
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday weakened by NT$0.047 to close at NT$32.328 against the greenback on turnover of US$819 million.
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