REBOUND:
After a four-day decline, the TAIEX closed up 1.48 percent, supported by a rise in TSMC shares, taking the index’s yearly gains to more than 19 percent
Bloomberg
The Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) expects applications for new share listing to increase by more than 50 percent this year as it seeks to diversify from its reliance on the technology sector, its chairman said on Monday.
TWSE chairman and chief executive officer Sherman Lin (???) said that initial public offering (IPO) applications would reach 40 this year — the most since 2013 — with firms from the electric vehicle, cloud computing and biotech sectors leading the rise.
Requests for new share sales on the exchange’s Taiwan Innovation Board would likely double after only eight companies applied last year, Lin said.
Photo: Bloomberg, Cheng I-hwa
Technology “is the driving engine in Taiwan, but there are a lot of industries that are below the radar,” Lin said in an interview with Bloomberg. “We hope to attract these hidden champions to our stock market and showcase them to the global market.”
Chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, ???) dominates the country’s equity market with a 28 percent weighting in the benchmark TAIEX. That makes the gauge susceptible to large price movements in the stock.
With exports falling for 10 consecutive months due to weak global demand for its technology products, investors are reassessing their portfolios.
A recent sell-down in tech companies has driven net selling of Taiwanese stocks to its highest in a year. Global funds withdrew US$4.4 billion from Taiwanese equities in the two weeks through Saturday.
The TAIEX yesterday rebounded after a four-day decline, supported by a climb of 2.12 percent in TSMC. The index closed up 246.11 points, or 1.48 percent, at 16,898.9 on turnover of NT$314.852 billion (US$10.05 billion), exchange data showed.
That takes the TAIEX’s gains for the year to more than 19 percent, making the gauge among the best performers in Asia. Net inflows for the year stood at US$8.2 billion.
The TWSE has reformed its industry classification to help widen the diversification of firms on the exchange. It is also working on enhancing its global image and improving information accessibility for traders in an effort to draw more foreign investors.
“There are signs that we can be less pessimistic about the future,” Lin said, adding that the stock market reflects expectations that the economy will “rebound” this year.
Lin is also preparing to visit New York and Boston in September — his first official trip since taking the helm in July last year — to court foreign investors who account for 40 percent of Taiwan’s stock market value. He plans to travel to Europe and the UK next year.
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