Taiwanese shares trended lower yesterday as investors took their cues from the losses on Wall Street and major European markets such as France and Germany, amid lingering concerns over the debt situation in Greece, dealers said.
The US’ downward revision of its first-quarter GDP forecast raised worries over global economic fundamentals, while market sentiment turned cautious ahead of the release of sales data for last month by locally listed firms, they said.
Yesterday saw the implementation of the new daily fluctuation limits for shares — which was raised from 7 percent to 10 percent — but there was no upsurge in selling as many investors remained on the sidelines, they said.
Photo: Liu Hsin-der, Taipei Times
The TAIEX closed down 75.38 points, or 0.78 percent, at 9,625.69, on turnover of NT$91.24 billion (US$2.95 billion).
Decliners led gainers 4,153 to 2,465, with 238 stocks unchanged. A total of 13 stocks closed limit-up, while 35 were limit-down, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
The bellwether electronics sector led the broader market’s downturn as investors appeared worried about global demand after the US revised its first-quarter GDP growth forecast to minus-0.7 percent, dealers said.
However, some bargain hunting emerged, capping the losses after the TAIEX briefly fell below 9,600 points, they said.
“The local bourse remained haunted by negative leads from overseas. Judging from the moderate turnover today, the bigger fluctuation limit did not spur more selling,” Marbo Securities Investment Consulting Co (萬寶投顧) analyst Chang Chih-cheng (張智誠) said. “The local equity market is likely to remain in the doldrums at least until June 10, the deadline for tech companies here to report their May sales data.”
The electronics sector closed down 1.01 percent, while the semiconductor sub-index declined 1.01 percent amid concern over Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) sales momentum in the third quarter.
TSMC shares fell 0.68 percent to close at NT$145.
UBS Securities forecast that TSMC would see a 3 percent sequential increase in sales for the July-to-September period due to clients’ inventory adjustments — lower than other foreign brokerages’ estimate of an 8 percent increase.
Smartphone vendor HTC Corp (宏達電) fell 4.85 percent to close at NT$98 after local media reports that the company’s suppliers have lowered their forecasts for shipments of its flagship One M9 smartphone by 30 percent to 3.2 million units this year.
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