Taiwanese shares closed higher yesterday on the back of a rally on Wall Street overnight, but turnover shrank further as many foreign institutional investors spent Christmas Day off the trading floor.
Shares slipped in Tokyo and Shanghai, two of only a handful of world markets open on Christmas Day.
The TAIEX ended up 99.89 points, or 0.43 percent, at 23,220.13. Turnover totaled NT$305.713 billion (US$9.36 billion), down from NT$338.276 billion the previous day, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
Photo: Reuters
Japan’s Nikkei 225 index edged 0.1 percent lower to 38,997.02, while the Shanghai Composite index lost 0.2 percent to 3,387.41.
“Look at the thin turnover. The local market was quiet with many foreign institutional investors absent from the market,” equity market analyst Andy Hsu (許博傑) said.
Yesterday’s turnover was below the average of NT$375.50 billion in the previous five trading sessions.
“So, it was not easy for the TAIEX to break the current narrow swing as TSMC {Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, 台積電] failed to sustain all of its earlier gains,” Hsu said. “But TSMC still served as an anchor to stabilize the broader market.”
Contract chipmaker TSMC, the most heavily weighted stock on the local market, rose 0.46 percent to close at NT$1,085.
“Trading is expected to remain light into the end of this year before foreign institutional investors return to the market,” Hsu said. “Caution toward [Donald] Trump’s possible tariff hikes could also affect market movement.”
On Tuesday, stocks closed higher on Wall Street in a shortened holiday session. Gains in Big Tech stocks helped the S&P 500 to a 1.1 percent gain, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.9 percent. The NASDAQ composite climbed 1.3 percent.
So far this month, the US stock market has lost some of its gains since Trump’s election win, which raised hopes for faster economic growth and more lax regulations that would boost corporate profits. Worries have risen that Trump’s preference for tariffs and other policies could lead to higher inflation, a bigger US government debt and difficulties for global trade.
Even so, the US market remains on pace to deliver strong returns this year. The benchmark S&P 500 is up 26.6 percent so far this year and remains within roughly 1 percent of the all-time high it set earlier this month — its latest of 57 record highs this year.
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