The TAIEX closed moderately higher yesterday, but turnover continued to fall, as foreign institutional investors were away from the trading floor due to the Christmas holiday, dealers said.
Large-cap stocks recouped earlier losses, led by contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which helped the broader market recover from an earlier low, the dealers said.
The TAIEX ended up 31.75 points, or 0.27 percent, at 12,008.13, after moving between 11,973.95 and 12,032.37, on turnover of NT$90.692 billion (US$3 billion).
The market opened up 2.56 points and continued to move in a narrow range as US markets appeared lackluster, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 0.13 percent and the tech-heavy NASDAQ Composite closing up 0.08 percent overnight in a curtailed session before Christmas Day, the dealers said.
However, buying emerged later, targeting market heavyweights in both the electronics and non-tech sectors, lifting the TAIEX out of the doldrums and breaching 12,000 points by the end of the trading session, they said.
“With many foreign institutional investors away for the holiday, it was no surprise that the local main board remained quiet today and turnover fell further,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投信) analyst Alex Huang (黃國偉) said.
Trading volume stood at NT$104.13 billion a day earlier.
After small fluctuations for most of the trading session, the market became slightly more active about 30 minutes before the close, with heavier buying targeting large-cap stocks, Huang said.
“I think the purchases partly came from local institutional investors who were holding a large chunk of long-position futures contracts and wanted to see the TAIEX move higher so that they could profit from them,” Huang said.
“The best way to prop up the index was to buy into big guys, like TSMC,” he added.
TSMC, the most heavily weighted stock in the local market, rose 0.30 percent to close at NT$333.00 after coming off a low of NT$331.00.
A total of 10.15 million shares changed hands yesterday, which was shy of Tuesday’s more than 13 million shares.
FALLING BEHIND: Samsung shares have declined more than 20 percent this year, as the world’s largest chipmaker struggles in key markets and plays catch-up to rival SK Hynix Samsung Electronics Co is laying off workers in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand as part of a plan to reduce its global headcount by thousands of jobs, sources familiar with the situation said. The layoffs could affect about 10 percent of its workforces in those markets, although the numbers for each subsidiary might vary, said one of the sources, who asked not to be named because the matter is private. Job cuts are planned for other overseas subsidiaries and could reach 10 percent in certain markets, the source said. The South Korean company has about 147,000 in staff overseas, more than half
Taipei is today suspending its US$2.5 trillion stock market as Super Typhoon Krathon approaches Taiwan with strong winds and heavy rain. The nation is not conducting securities, currency or fixed-income trading, statements from its stock and currency exchanges said. Yesterday, schools and offices were closed in several cities and counties in southern and eastern Taiwan, including in the key industrial port city of Kaohsiung. Taiwan, which started canceling flights, ship sailings and some train services earlier this week, has wind and rain advisories in place for much of the island. It regularly experiences typhoons, and in July shut offices and schools as
An Indian factory producing iPhone components resumed work yesterday after a fire that halted production — the third blaze to disrupt Apple Inc’s local supply chain since the start of last year. Local industrial behemoth Tata Group’s plant in Tamil Nadu, which was shut down by the unexplained fire on Saturday, is a key linchpin of Apple’s nascent supply chain in the country. A spokesperson for subsidiary Tata Electronics Pvt yesterday said that the company would restart work in “many areas of the facility today.” “We’ve been working diligently since Saturday to support our team and to identify the cause of the fire,”
TECH PARTNERSHIP: The deal with Arizona-based Amkor would provide TSMC with advanced packing and test capacities, a requirement to serve US customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is collaborating with Amkor Technology Inc to provide local advanced packaging and test capacities in Arizona to address customer requirements for geographical flexibility in chip manufacturing. As part of the agreement, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, would contract turnkey advanced packaging and test services from Amkor at their planned facility in Peoria, Arizona, a joint statement released yesterday said. TSMC would leverage these services to support its customers, particularly those using TSMC’s advanced wafer fabrication facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, it said. The companies would jointly define the specific packaging technologies, such as TSMC’s Integrated
RSS