The semiconductor sector drove last week’s upturn in the local stock market, boosting the market’s capitalization by almost 1.8 percent, the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) said.
With contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) steaming ahead, the market cap of the main bourse rose about NT$560.46 billion (US$18.57 billion), or 1.79 percent from a week earlier, to NT$31.94 trillion, while the market cap of the semiconductor sector gained NT$473.5 billion, TWSE data showed.
The TAIEX on Friday closed up 0.12 points at 10,724.09, the 100th consecutive trading session in which share prices traded above that level, the longest run for the index above that level in its history.
Foreign institutional investors last week bought a net 34.80 million TSMC shares, sending the company’s stock up 5.79 percent to close at NT$237.5 on Friday and boosting its market cap to reach NT$6.16 trillion, the highest on the main bourse.
The semiconductor sub-index rose 6.1 percent and the TAIEX gained 1.82 percent last week.
Buying in TSMC also spread to other semiconductor stocks, which moved the sector even higher.
Chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) gained 10.53 percent to close at NT$322 on Friday.
The market cap on MediaTek rose NT$49.04 billion, the second-largest increase in the semiconductor sector, the data showed.
In related news, the number of major retail investors in the market in the third quarter hit a six-year high as surging share prices have drawn in more big investors, the TWSE said on Thursday.
Data compiled by the exchange showed that the number of investors who traded more than NT$500 million in a single quarter reached 1,198 in the third quarter, the highest since the third quarter of 2011, when the number reached 1,416.
The number was up 515 from a quarter earlier as the TAIEX stayed above the 10,000-point mark after breaching that level for the first time in 17 years in May.
The number of investors who traded shares valued NT$100 million to NT$500 million during the third quarter also hit a six-year high, rising 60 percent from a quarter earlier to 9,822, the most since a peak of 10,847 in the third quarter of 2011, the exchange said.
According to the TWSE, retail investors accounted for 62.07 percent of the market’s turnover in the third quarter, with foreign institutional investors making up 23.96 percent and local institutional investors representing the remaining 13.97 percent.
Average daily turnover was NT$111.53 billion in the third quarter, up 21.03 percent from an average NT$92.15 billion in the second quarter.
By different investor segments, turnover in the third quarter was up 14.24 percent for foreign institutional investors, 10.79 percent for local institutional investors and 45.08 percent for retail investors, the data showed.
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