Shares dip as Wall Street falls
Share prices closed down 1.26 percent yesterday after Wall Street fell below the key 10,000-point mark overnight amid concern over the global economy, while bargain hunters emerged to recoup some of the early losses, dealers said.
The TAIEX fell 94.20 points to 7,329.37 after moving between 7,255.09 and 7,337.32 on turnover of NT$88.84 billion (US$2.76 billion).
The market opened down 1.97 percent in a knee-jerk response to the dive on Wall Street, and pressure continued during most of the trading session, focusing on large-cap high-tech stocks due to heavy losses posted by their counterparts in the US, the dealers said.
However, bargain hunters became active in late trading to take advantage of battered valuations following declines in the past few sessions, they said.
A total of 2,564 stocks closed down and 596 were up, with 201 remaining unchanged.
Branding to bring results
The government expects Taiwan’s branding efforts to garner substantial results within 10 years, hopefully making the country an Asia-Pacific branding center, Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥) said yesterday.
Speaking at a seminar on a branding campaign sponsored by the Bureau of Foreign Trade, Shih said Taiwan businesses have three advantages that will help them establish distinguished brands on the world market.
First, Taiwan has accumulated strong momentum with years of experience in manufacturing as a foundation upon which it can diversify into the service industry. Second, the rise of emerging markets, including China, provides a good opportunity for Taiwan to build its own brands. Third, Taiwan-made high-quality and reasonably priced products will satisfy the appetites of clients in the Chinese and emerging markets, he said.
“The country will have more world-class brands like Acer (宏碁), TrendMicro (趨勢), HTC (宏達電), Asustek (華碩), Hon Hai (鴻海), Master Kong (康師傅), Uni-President (統一) and Giant (捷安特),” he said.
Capital market competitive
Taiwan’s capital market has become more competitive after the signing of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) with China, with many overseas Taiwanese investors studying the possibility of listing on the the nation’s main bourse, Taiwan Stock Exchange Corp (TWSE, 台灣證交所) said yesterday.
TWSE said in a statement that the ECFA built on years of efforts to liberalize its capital market, relax trading restrictions and improve market transparency in an attempt to attract overseas Taiwanese investors to return and list on the local main board and the over-the-counter market.
TWSE said that many international investors pay attention to Taiwan’s capital market because the country is home to major high-tech companies.
S&P rates E.Sun Financial
Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services said yesterday it had assigned its BBB- long-term counterparty credit rating and A-2 short-term credit rating to E.Sun Financial Holding Co (玉山金控), with a stable outlook on its long-term rating.
S&P said the ratings on E.Sun Financial reflected the group’s good asset quality, supported by prudent risk controls and adequate capitalization.
NT dollar gains slightly
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against the US dollar yesterday, rising NT$0.001 to close at NT$32.278.
Turnover totaled US$708 million during the trading session.
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