Following the TAIEX’s dramatic rise over the past year, investors have turned cautious about the market’s direction going forward, a survey released by Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控) yesterday showed.
Only 10.2 percent of those polled expected the weighted index to hit a peak of 15,500 to 16,000 points and 7.1 percent expected it to end above 16,000 points, the survey showed.
A larger number, 40 percent, expected the TAIEX to peak above 15,000 points by the end of the first half, while 37.1 percent expected it to peak between 14,500 and 15,000 points, it showed.
Photo: CNA
The index fell 0.45 percent yesterday to close at 15,806.18.
The report surveyed 20,912 of Cathay Financial’s clients between Jan. 1 and Jan. 7, when the TAIEX climbed from 14,732 points to 15,214 points.
As a majority of Cathay’s clients are retail investors, their predictions likely reflect public confidence in the market rather than a research-based forecast about the market, a Cathay Financial official surnamed Wu (吳) told the Taipei Times by telephone.
“Given that when we conducted a similar poll in January last year, with the TAIEX at about 12,000 points at the time, only 27 percent of respondents forecast that the TAIEX would continue climbing and peak above 12,500 points, it seems that Taiwanese are more upbeat about the stock market this year,” Wu said.
Their optimism corresponds with a rise in their risk preference, with 33.3 percent of respondents willing to withdraw their fixed deposits and invest them in the stock market, up from 30.6 percent a month earlier and 25.6 percent a year earlier, Wu said.
Overall, 46.3 percent of respondents expected the TAIEX to continue rising in the next six months, followed by 16.7 percent who believed it would be flat and 23.4 percent predicting that it would decline, the survey showed.
Meanwhile, public confidence in the economy picked up, with 43.8 percent forecasting that the economy would improve in the next six months, up from 42.5 percent a month earlier, which could be attributed to the rising availability of COVID-19 vaccines, Cathay said.
However, respondents’ willingness to buy durable goods, such as vehicles or home appliances, and to make big-ticket purchases, such as travel or shopping, diverged, with the former growing from 20.7 percent a month earlier to 22.6 percent, while the latter declined from 29.5 percent to 28.5 percent, the survey showed.
Wu said it was quite curious, “as people were usually more willing to make big-ticket purchases rather than spending on durable goods during past economic recoveries.”
This might be due to rising demand for electronic goods because of the work-from-home trend or falling demand for travel because of strict border controls, Wu said.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary
RSS