The nation’s financial holding companies reported record-high unrealized losses of NT$873.2 billion (US$28.66 billion) during the second quarter, as the value of their investment assets plunged amid market routs sparked by the US Federal Reserve’s cycle of rate hikes, data from the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) showed on Monday.
Combined unrealized losses in the first half of this year came in at NT$827.76 billion — NT$661 billion from overseas investments and NT$166 billion from domestic investments, the data showed.
The majority of their losses came from investments in the US, which totaled NT$256.5 billion at the end of June, compared with unrealized losses of NT$38.4 billion at the end of March, the data showed.
Photo: Kelson Wang, Taipei Times
Financial holding companies’ investments in the US increased by NT$503 billion in the second quarter, mainly because local life insurance companies bought more US fixed-income products, the data showed.
China was the second biggest source of losses, with the financial holding firms reporting aggregate losses of NT$53.1 billion, followed by France with losses of NT$31.7 billion, Russia with losses of NT$31.4 billion and Mexico with losses of NT$27.5 billion, the data showed.
The companies also boosted their investments slightly in France, Russia and Mexico, but cut their investments in China by NT$88 billion during the second quarter, the data showed.
Overall, financial holding companies’ overseas exposure totaled NT$23.95 trillion at the end of June, up about 3 percent from the previous quarter, the data showed.
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