TAIEX closes above 8,000
Share prices closed up 1.06 percent yesterday, ending above the key 8,000 point level for the first time since mid-June last year amid optimism over a global economic recovery, dealers said.
The TAIEX rose 84.90 points to 8,057.49 on turnover of NT$139.58 billion (US$4.33 billion).
The market opened 0.55 percent higher on active rotational buying and the momentum continued throughout the trade, led by market laggards, in particular the financial sector and select old economy stocks, dealers said.
“The market is awash in funds. With sentiment having turning upbeat, today’s gains were not a surprise at all,” Mega Securities (兆豐證券) analyst Alex Huang (黃國偉) said.
Huang said a rising Wall Street has enhanced investor confidence after recent better-than-expected US economic data.
“It seems that many investors hold a positive attitude toward the global economy and are willing to pick up bargains at the moment,” Huang said.
“Financial stocks have under performed the broader market for some time. They appeared relatively cheap,” he said, adding that he suspected the buying in the sector came from foreign institutional investors who were short covering.
Inventec to build in China
Inventec Corp (英業達), the world’s fourth-largest contract notebook computer maker, said in a statement yesterday that it would spend US$800 million to build a plant in Chongqing, China, over the course of the next five years.
The company said it had signed an agreement with the Chongqing government on Saturday and the plant would become its second manufacturing base in China after Shanghai.
The Chongqing facility would initially focus on notebook computer production, then expand to the whole IT system, including servers, mobile communications and software production, the company said.
The new factory is expected to produce US$10 billion of annual output five years after the investment is completed, the company said.
Larger rival Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦) is reportedly also mulling sites in Chongqing to cope with the growing PC demand over the next few years.
China rubber-stamps Fubon unit
Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控), Taiwan’s second-largest financial services provider, won approval yesterday from the China Insurance Regulatory Commission to set up a property insurance unit in Xiamen, the company said in a press statement.
The venture, the first of its kind after a cross-strait memorandum of understanding was inked last week, would have registered capital of 200 million yuan (US$29 million), the statement said.
Both the group’s banking and insurance subsidiaries, life and non-life, in China would be expanded to target Chinese customers in addition to China-based Taiwanese clientele, the group said.
Hong Kong auctions plots
Hong Kong’s government auctioned two sites for residential development in the north of the territory for HK$10.4 billion (US$1.33 billion) yesterday.
The 20,925m² plots were the biggest offered since September 2007, Lands Department records show.
The land sits on the waterfront in the Tai Po district of the New Territories.
NT dollar slightly weaker
The New Taiwan dollar was slightly weaker by NT$0.020 to close at NT$32.294 yesterday against the greenback on turnover of US$511 million.
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