The nation’s securities account balance, a gauge of retail investors’ confidence in local equities, fell to its lowest level in seven months last month, as the TAIEX remained in consolidation mode before buying emerged this month, data released by the central bank showed yesterday.
The securities account balance declined to NT$3.15 trillion (US$99.6 billion) from NT$3.25 trillion in the previous month, the data showed.
It dropped for a third straight month and hit its lowest since March, when the balance stood at NT$3.14 trillion.
Photo: CNA
The latest data also showed that foreign institutional investors’ New Taiwan dollar-denominated deposit balance decreased for the third straight month to NT$184.3 billion last month, reaching its lowest level since July 2020.
In terms of proportion of market transactions, retail investors accounted for 55 percent of the trading volume, compared with 57.7 percent one month earlier, while foreign institutional players accounted for 34 percent, up from 31.5 percent, the data showed.
The central bank's latest data reflected that stock market sentiment was on the wane in the past three months as the TAIEX averaged 16,422 points last month, down from 17,072 points in July.
The securities account balance decreased by NT$301.6 billion in the past three months and foreign institutional investors sold a net NT$325.8 billion of local shares over the same period, the data showed.
The TAIEX closed at 17,287.42 yesterday, having risen 8.07 percent so far this month, the Taiwan Stock Exchange’s statistics data showed.
With the continued decline in the securities account balance, M1B money supply — a measurement of money in circulation, including currency and passbook savings deposits — fell 0.57 percent from September, the central bank said in a report yesterday.
On an annual basis, M1B grew 3.32 percent, mainly due to faster growth in demand deposits, the report said.
The broader M2 monetary aggregate, which includes M1B, time deposits, foreign-currency deposits and mutual funds, edged up 0.22 percent from the previous month, the central bank said.
While M2 increased 5.7 percent year-on-year last month, the annual growth rate narrowed from 5.98 percent in September, which the central bank attributed mainly to net fund outflows as foreign institutional investors registered a net fund outflow of US$1.02 billion in the month.
During the first 10 months of the year, M1B rose 2.77 percent and M2 advanced 6.44 percent from a year earlier, the data showed.
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