The TAIEX yesterday dipped below 10,000 points during intraday trading, as investors worried that escalating COVID-19 infections worldwide could upset the global economy following a 10 percent slump on Wall Street overnight, analysts said.
Stock prices fell 331.29 points, or 3.17 percent, and lost about 780 points in the early trading session, the steepest intraday decline ever.
Prices rebounded slowly to close down 293.45 points, or 2.82 percent, at 10,128.87 points, Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) data showed.
Photo: AFP
Turnover swelled to NT$302.182 billion (US$10 billion), the highest in more than a year and a 77 percent increase on the average turnover of NT$170 billion last month, it showed.
Foreign institutional investors cut their net holdings by NT$30.23 billion, with the New Taiwan dollar falling NT$0.06 to NT$30.21 against the US dollar in Taipei trading.
The TAIEX joined a sell-off across Asian stock markets, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index falling 1.14 percent, the Shanghai Composite Index dropping 1.23 percent, South Korea’s KOSPI slipping 3.43 percent and Japan’s Nikkei 225 declining 6.08 percent, the data showed.
“That could be attributed to the bearish US equity market, with many investors terrified after seeing the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Thursday plummet 2,000 points, the most severe crash since 1987,” Hua Nan Securities Investment Management Co (華南投顧) chairman David Chu (儲祥生) said by telephone yesterday.
The TAIEX was comparatively calm on Tuesday, the day after the US equity market triggered a break that gave traders and investors a 15-minute pause in trading, Chu said.
However, with the WHO declaring COVID-19 a pandemic, US president Donald Trump’s stimulus plan failing and his announcing travel restrictions from Europe to the US, investors became more nervous, Chu said.
The TAIEX gained some ground later, possibly supported by purchases by government funds, Chu said, adding that the eight state-owned banks bought a net NT$4 billion of local shares.
“Selling pressure from foreign institutional investors has eased, compared with the net NT$54.56 billion they sold on Monday, so the TAIEX is expected to stage a recovery next week,” Xincheng International Investment Consultant (信誠環球投顧) analyst Chang Chih-cheng (張志誠) said.
“However, the rally might not be large, as investors’ concern would not be effectively mitigated until the worldwide spread of the virus is contained,” Chang said.
Although the government says that the TAIEX would remain attractive as many companies delivered dividend yields higher than 4 percent, investors are not likely to remain invested just for the cash dividends, Chang said.
“The virus has disrupted global supply chains and would affect local companies’ profitability in the first half of this year, which is the main concern for investors here,” Chang said.
Napoleon Osorio is proud of being the first taxi driver to have accepted payment in bitcoin in the first country in the world to make the cryptocurrency legal tender: El Salvador. He credits Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s decision to bank on bitcoin three years ago with changing his life. “Before I was unemployed... And now I have my own business,” said the 39-year-old businessman, who uses an app to charge for rides in bitcoin and now runs his own car rental company. Three years ago the leader of the Central American nation took a huge gamble when he put bitcoin
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
PARTNERSHIPS: TSMC said it has been working with multiple memorychip makers for more than two years to provide a full spectrum of solutions to address AI demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it has been collaborating with multiple memorychip makers in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications for more than two years, refuting South Korean media report's about an unprecedented partnership with Samsung Electronics Co. As Samsung is competing with TSMC for a bigger foundry business, any cooperation between the two technology heavyweights would catch the eyes of investors and experts in the semiconductor industry. “We have been working with memory partners, including Micron, Samsung Memory and SK Hynix, on HBM solutions for more than two years, aiming to advance 3D integrated circuit
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).
RSS