Low turnover holds back TAIEX
Share prices closed down 0.30 percent yesterday.
Traders said the shrinking volume means the market is likely to continue moving within a narrow range in the early part of next week.
The TAIEX fell 22.67 points to 7,493.11, after moving between 7,459.93 and 7,538.55 during the day’s trading.
Turnover decreased to NT$66.84 billion (US$2.08 billion) — the lowest turnover of the week — compared to NT$$91.94 billion recorded the previous day.
“The turnover was just too low to drive the market higher,” Taiwan International Securities (金鼎證券) analyst Benson Huang said.
“The index might need to build a solid base at around 7,400 in the next three to four days before moving higher again,” Huang said.
A total of 1,009 stocks closed higher and 1,686 ended the day lower, while 413 remained unchanged.
Foreign institutional investors and Chinese qualified domestic institutional investors were net buyers of NT$3.7 billion worth of shares.
Wistron to buy back shares
The board of local notebook computer contract maker Wistron Corp (緯創) yesterday approved a plan to buy an office building in the Neihu district of Taipei City for NT$2.79 billion, an example of the its commitment to invest more in the domestic market, the company said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
The new investment is part of Wistron’s broader plan to invest more in R&D locally and make Taiwan its global operations center, the company said in the filing.
The board also gave the green light to a share buyback program
Wistron plans to repurchase 20 million shares, or 1.07 percent of its outstanding shares, for distribution to employees.
The company also plans to buy back the shares at prices ranging from NT$45 and NT$60 per share during the 2-month period from June 21 to August 20.
‘Early harvest’ talks ongoing
Negotiations on the “early harvest” list under the proposed economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China are ongoing and local petrochemical products and machine tools are sure to be added, Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥) said on Thursday.
However, the minister refused to be pinned down on whether he was referring to polypropylene and polyvinyl chloride which make up the bulk of the country’s petrochemical exports to China, saying that he would not talk about specific items.
Most of the “early harvest” list was agreed during the third round of trade talks between Taipei and Beijing last Sunday.
Taiwan has 500 items on its list, compared with 250 items on the Chinese side.
Debt crisis impacts growth
Europe’s sovereign debt crisis may cut European economic growth by one to 1.5 percentage points, Morgan Stanley Asia Ltd. Chairman Stephen Roach said in Taipei on Thursday.
The crisis is not enough to cause a double-dip in the global economy as the European economy makes up about 20 percent of total economic activity and a 1.5 percentage point drop translates to just 0.3 percentage point off the global economy, Roach said.
NT dollar appreciates
The New Taiwan dollar strengthened against the US dollar yesterday, rising NT$0.12 to close at NT$32.190. Turnover totaled US$629 million during the trading session.
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