TAIEX down on currency moves
The benchmark TAIEX closed down 1.06 percent yesterday as investors took note of losses suffered on other regional markets amid concern over the rapid appreciation of Asian currencies, dealers said.
The TAIEX fell 86.54 points to 8,090.22, after moving between 8,058.59 and 8,180.39, on turnover of NT$102.14 billion (US$3.3 billion).
The market opened down 0.06 points and selling accelerated after regional markets, including Tokyo, Hong Kong and Seoul, expanded losses to drag the local index down below the 8,100 point support level, dealers said.
A total of 2,820 stocks closed down, 1,065 finished up, and 237 stocks remained unchanged.
AUO to challenge lawsuit
AU Optronics Corp (AUO, 友達光電), the nation’s second-largest LCD panel maker, will defend itself against antitrust claims filed by Best Buy Co, according to a statement to the local bourse yesterday. The company has hired legal counsel to handle the case, it said.
The US retailer sued AUO and at least nine other global panel makers on Friday last week, according to the complaint filed in a US federal court in San Francisco, alleging from 1996 to 2006 the companies agreed on prices and production volumes.
Alibaba launches search engine
A unit of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group (阿里巴巴) said yesterday it had launched a search engine, in an apparent effort to capitalize on Google’s shrinking market share in China.
John Spelich, a spokesman for Hong Kong-listed unit Alibaba.com, told reporters in an e-mail that the engine, called Etao, was up and running but was still in its final testing stage.
After testing he said Etao would be officially launched by Taobao (淘寶網), which is owned by -Alibaba Group, and is China’s largest online consumer e-commerce site.
Spelich declined to provide further details.
As well as search options for e-commerce, Etao will provide a search engine powered by Microsoft’s Bing, a minor player in China’s search engine market, which is dominated by China’s Baidu (百度) and to a lesser extent Google.
Goldman holds HTC rating
Goldman Sachs said yesterday that it was maintaining a “buy” recommendation on smartphone maker HTC Corp (宏達電) after the company released five new models running on Microsoft Corp’s new Windows Phone 7 (WP7) operating system.
Goldman said the new models highlight HTC’s competitive advantage of being a Microsoft partner in commercializing new technologies.
The brokerage said it does not expect WP7 smartphones to be an immediate growth driver for HTC, but forecast that the benefits will be seen next year.
“We expect the products to incrementally fuel HTC’s momentum in the fourth quarter of this year and beyond,” Goldman said.
Goldman set a 12-month target price of NT$1,000 for HTC stocks, which fell 2.24 percent to NT$699.00 yesterday.
IPad awaits S Korean approval
US technology giant Apple is seeking approval to sell its iPad in South Korea, the telecommunications regulator said yesterday, after the iPhone’s local popularity fanned interest in the tablet computer.
The Korea Communications Commission said in a statement it would make a decision within five days on the request by Apple’s South Korean unit for technical approval.
A spokesman for KT Corp, local distributor of Apple’s iPhone, told Yonhap news agency it hopes to release the iPad next month once the certification is completed. He did not give a specific date.
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