No surprises were sprung as Taiwan stocks moved in tandem with US stocks.
Taiwan stocks rose 0.79 percent to a 10-week closing high on Tuesday, with technology shares including HTC Corp leading the way as gains on Wall Street fuelled optimism over tech demand in the coming months.
Analysts say most technology companies in Taiwan are likely to report better March sales this week as the global economy recovers, which could attract more buying from foreign investors and push the market further up.
It seems that March sales will be good and foreign investors were seen buying big chip shares such as TSMC today, said Tom Tang, a vice president at Masterlink Investment Advisory.
Taiwan’s main TAIEX share index ended up 63.72 points at 8,089.65, the highest close since Jan. 21. The financial sector rose 0.16 percent.
Smartphone maker HTC, whose March sales are due out later on Tuesday, jumped 1.6 percent and top contract chipmaker TSMC gained 1.6 percent, helping the electronics sub-index 1.07 percent higher.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC), which sells the bulk of its chips to clients in North America, is set to report its March sales on April 9.
PC Memory chip maker ProMOS shot up 6.8 percent to its daily limit and rival Winbond was also limit-up.
Mobile phone makers and other memory chip companies are benefiting from new models and higher chip prices, said Kevin Chung, manager at Jih Sun Investment Consulting.
Chung expects the TAIEX to test 8,200 later this week.
TAIEX IN PERSPECTIVE——————–
Move on day: 0.79 percent
Close on day: 8,089.65
2010 intraday high: 8,395.39
2010 intraday low: 7,080.90
All-time high: 12,682.41 12 Feb 1990
(US$1=T$31.7)