The TAIEX yesterday closed below 9,500 points for the first time since February last year amid continued concerns over trade friction between the US and China, dealers said.
Market sentiment remained cautious after a sell-off by foreign institutional investors, which has heightened concerns of further fund outflows, they said.
Other Asian markets also fell as trade tensions and geopolitical worries kept investors from tracking a rebound on Wall Street, with observers warning of further volatility to come.
The losses came at the end of a punishing week that witnessed steep losses across the board, with several indices wiping out their annual gains as the technology and energy sectors took a beating.
The TAIEX closed down 31.61 points, or 0.33 percent, at 9,489.18 on turnover of NT$128.06 billion (US$4.13 billion).
Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 1.1 percent, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 closed 0.4 percent lower and Shanghai’s SSE fell 0.2 percent.
Singapore’s Straits Times Index dove 1.4 percent, Seoul’s KOSPI shed 1.8 percent and Bangkok’s SET fell 0.5 percent.
However, Wellington’s NZX 50 was marginally higher and Manila’s PSEi added more than 1 percent.
In Taipei, some bargain-hunters emerged late in the session to pick up large-cap stocks, in particular Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), helping the TAIEX recoup some of its losses by the end of the session.
“It was a volatile session as investors remained bothered by unfavorable external factors such as the Washington-Beijing trade tensions,” Hua Nan Securities Co (華南永昌證券) analyst Kevin Su (蘇俊宏) said. “So when the index bounced back in the morning, many investors tended to lock in profits.”
TSMC, the most heavily weighted stock on the local market, gained 0.68 percent to close at NT$221.
Largan Precision Co (大立光) fell 2.43 percent to NT$3,210 and integrated circuit designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) shed 3.81 percent to close at NT$202.
Shares of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海), the world’s largest contract electronics maker, tumbled 7.75 percent to close at NT$76.2 after trading resumed yesterday following a week-long suspension due to a capital reduction.
“Today’s selling of Hon Hai shares simply followed the downturn of the market and other market heavyweights in previous sessions,” MasterLink Securities Corp (元富證券) analyst Tom Tang (湯忠謙) said.
The stock has become technically fragile after yesterday’s plunge and there are no signs of Hon Hai shares finding strong technical support unless foreign institutional investors resume buying, Tang said.
Foreign institutional investors sold a net NT$2.35 billion of local shares yesterday after an aggregate net sell of NT$150.85 billion from Oct. 1 to Thursday, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
Additional reporting by AFP
JITTERS: Nexperia has a 20 percent market share for chips powering simpler features such as window controls, and changing supply chains could take years European carmakers are looking into ways to scratch components made with parts from China, spooked by deepening geopolitical spats playing out through chipmaker Nexperia BV and Beijing’s export controls on rare earths. To protect operations from trade ructions, several automakers are pushing major suppliers to find permanent alternatives to Chinese semiconductors, people familiar with the matter said. The industry is considering broader changes to its supply chain to adapt to shifting geopolitics, Europe’s main suppliers lobby CLEPA head Matthias Zink said. “We had some indications already — questions like: ‘How can you supply me without this dependency on China?’” Zink, who also
At least US$50 million for the freedom of an Emirati sheikh: That is the king’s ransom paid two weeks ago to militants linked to al-Qaeda who are pushing to topple the Malian government and impose Islamic law. Alongside a crippling fuel blockade, the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) has made kidnapping wealthy foreigners for a ransom a pillar of its strategy of “economic jihad.” Its goal: Oust the junta, which has struggled to contain Mali’s decade-long insurgency since taking power following back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021, by scaring away investors and paralyzing the west African country’s economy.
BUST FEARS: While a KMT legislator asked if an AI bubble could affect Taiwan, the DGBAS minister said the sector appears on track to continue growing The local property market has cooled down moderately following a series of credit control measures designed to contain speculation, the central bank said yesterday, while remaining tight-lipped about potential rule relaxations. Lawmakers in a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee voiced concerns to central bank officials that the credit control measures have adversely affected the government’s tax income and small and medium-sized property developers, with limited positive effects. Housing prices have been climbing since 2016, even when the central bank imposed its first set of control measures in 2020, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) said. “Since the second half of
AI BOOST: Next year, the cloud and networking product business is expected to remain a key revenue pillar for the company, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu said Manufacturing giant Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday posted its best third-quarter profit in the company’s history, backed by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Net profit expanded 17 percent annually to NT$57.67 billion (US$1.86 billion) from NT$44.36 billion, the company said. On a quarterly basis, net profit soared 30 percent from NT$44.36 billion, it said. Hon Hai, which is Apple Inc’s primary iPhone assembler and makes servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators, said earnings per share expanded to NT$4.15 from NT$3.55 a year earlier and NT$3.19 in the second quarter. Gross margin improved to 6.35 percent,
RSS