Shares closed higher yesterday in Taipei trading as late-session buying boosted large-cap stocks in both the high-tech and old economy sectors to push the TAIEX above the 9,300-point mark, dealers said.
However, turnover remained thin because many foreign institutional investors were still away from the local bourse for the holiday season, they added.
The TAIEX ended up 38.83 points, or 0.42 percent, at the day’s high of 9,307.26, the highest the index has been at the end of a year in 25 years, according to Taiwan Stock Exchange tallies.
Turnover reached NT$59.15 billion (US$1.87 billion) yesterday, with foreign institutional investors buying a net NT$1.65 billion in local shares, data showed.
“With the index breaching 9,300 points, the local bourse has become technically healthier,” Concord Securities (康和證券) analyst Kerry Huang said. “I expect that foreign investors will return to the local market [this month] to boost the index even higher.”
Huang said that the local bourse would face stiff technical resistance at about 9,600 points.
Taiwan’s stock market gained 8.08 percent last year and the market value of listed shares increased by more than NT$2.3 trillion over the year, or an average of NT$248,000 for each of the 9.43 million stockholder accounts in the market.
The benchmark index hit the year’s low of 8,230.46 in February and its high of 9,593.68 in July.
The 8.08 percent gains for the year in Taiwan outperformed the main markets in South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore, but trailed the gains made in China and Japan.
Chinese stocks surged on the final day of last year, leading gains in other world markets as investors readied for a year likely to be defined by fragility in major economies.
The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index jumped 2.18 percent to 3,234.68 points, the highest since January 19, 2010, when the index ended at 3,246.87 points.
The Shanghai index surged 52.87 percent for the year.
The Shenzhen Composite Index, which tracks stocks on China’s second exchange, gained 1.19 percent to close at 1,415.19 points. It soared 33.8 percent for the year.
Almost all of China’s rise came in the past couple of months, as hopes for more aggressive policy stimulus to counter its economic slowdown boosted banks and brokerages.
However BOC International Holdings Ltd (中銀國際控股) analyst Shen Jun (沈鈞) said the rally runs contrary to economic fundamentals.
“It is driven by financial leverage and encouraged by government policies,” Shen said.
A survey of five major Chinese brokerages showed that most expect the Shanghai index to continue rising this year and peak between 3,500 and 3,600 points, although they expect it to fall back to between 3,200 and 3,300 by the end of the year.
In a post on its official Web site, China’s central bank mentioned its strategic outlook for the new year.
“[The central bank] will continue to implement prudent monetary policy and keep policy continuous and steady,” central bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan (周小川) said in his online New Year’s address.
The People’s Bank of China plans to pay more attention and to tweak policies when necessary, Zhou said.
Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong stocks ended the year on a high, adding 0.44 percent to 23,605.04 points yesterday, helping the Hang Seng Index eke out a small gain of 1.28 percent for the year.
India’s SENSEX rose 0.2 percent to finish at 27,453.99 points, heading for a gain of 29.8 percent its best since 2009.
Sydney slipped 0.1 percent to close at 5,411 points, ending the year with a loss of 1.1 percent; while Wellington shed 0.16 percent to 5,568.28 — marking a surge of 17.55 percent over the year.
Japan’s markets finished their last trading sessions on Tuesday, with the Nikkei 225 index faring better, with a climb of 7.1 percent for the year, thanks chiefly to the Bank of Japan’s extraordinary campaign of asset purchases, which weakened the yen and fattened exporters’ profit margins.
Asia’s worst performer last year was South Korea, where the KOSPI lost 4.8 percent for the year, partly on fears that the sliding yen would give Japanese exporters a greater competitive advantage over their Asian rivals.
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