Taiwan stocks slither out of Snake Year on gain
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Wednesday February 6, 3:20 PM
sg.biz.yahoo.com
TAIPEI, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Taiwan stocks rang out the Year of the Snake with a solid 1.4 percent gain on Wednesday as heavily weighted memory chipmakers led the way on improving January corporate sales, ahead of the long Lunar New Year holidays.
The benchmark TAIEX <.TWII> stock index rose 1.4 percent, or 81.83 points, to close at 5,926.08 points, reversing a three-session losing run..
Turnover expanded to T$138.9 billion from T$82.54 billion on Tuesday. The index rose to a near one-year high last week rising over 6,000 points, but have since sank into consolidation as investors remain wary of the long holidays.
Taiwan's stock market will be closed beginning Thursday for the holidays and reopens on February 18.
"The index has consolidated for more than one week on pre-holiday caution, but bullish investors who have anticipated post-holiday gains jumped into the final session before the holidays," said James Lu, investment director of JF Asset Management (Taiwan), who oversees some US$60 million funds.
"We expect fundamentals and corporate sales to show gradual improvement, and we see a stock uptrend in coming months," Lu said, forecasting the index to rise above 6,500 in the second quarter.
The most heavily weighted electronics subindex <.TELI> rose 1.66 percent, with memory chipmaker Nan Ya Technologies <2408.TW> up T$2.5, or 5.1 percent to T$51.5. |
