The Ministry of Finance, the Financial Supervisory Commission and the National Development Council on Tuesday night reached a consensus on extending the transaction tax cut for day trading for two or three years after it expires at the end of this year, local media reported yesterday.
The three agencies will report the conclusion of their meeting to the Executive Yuan by the end of this month to finalize the extension plan, the reports said.
The government cut the tax for day trading from 0.003 percent to 0.0015 percent in 2017. With the tax cut set to come to an end at the end of this year, concern has risen that the impending end of the incentive led many day traders and investors in old economy stocks to dump their holdings in the past few days.
Photo: Kelson Wang, Taipei Times
However, investors seem optimistic about the tax cut extension, leading to buying yesterday of old economy stocks, including shipping and raw material stocks, Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang (黃國偉) said.
The bellwether electronics sector yesterday also reversed earlier losses, giving an additional boost to the broader market, Huang said.
Taiwanese shares yesterday recovered earlier heavy losses caused by volatility on US markets overnight to end a nine-session losing streak and finish the day above the 16,800-point mark, as bargain hunters took advantage of the initial downturn.
The TAIEX closed up 164.91 points, or 0.99 percent, at 16,826.27. Turnover was NT$417.49 billion (US$14.99 billion), with foreign institutional investors selling a net NT$2.24 billion of shares on the main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
“Further gains are possible before the TAIEX moves closer to the nearest technical resistance ahead of the 120-day moving average at around 16,960 points,” Huang said.
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