TAIPEI: Taiwan shares came under pressure in mid-morning trade Monday as investors took cues from last Friday’s losses on Wall Street to dump their holdings, dealers said.
The semiconductor sector trended lower, led by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co amid concerns that the world’s largest contract chip maker will suffer as a result of inventory adjustments in the third quarter, dealers said.
Large-cap stocks like TSMC, however, did not encounter intolerable selling pressure, dealers said, noting that the expansion of the market’s maximum fluctuation from 7 percent to 10 percent took effect Monday.
As of 10:57 a.m., the weighted index on the Taiwan Stock Exchange had fallen 0.82 percent to 9,621.66 points on turnover of NT$49.54 billion (US$1.61 billion). The semiconductor sub-index was down 1.08 percent, and the electronics sub-index was 1.22 percent lower.
“Investors simply seized the downturn on Wall Street on Friday as an excuse to sell this morning, while lingering concerns over the debt problems in Greece also dampened investor sentiment,” Mega International Investment Services Corp. Alex Huang said.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 0.64 percent Friday after the United States revised its first-quarter economic growth figure from 0.2 percent to minus 0.7 percent.
“The current selling is focused on the bellwether electronics sector amid worries over TSMC’s second-quarter sales growth,” Huang said. “Led by TSMC, other semiconductor stocks are also facing pressure.”
