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.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said that its investment plan in Arizona is going according to schedule, following a local media report claiming that the company is planning to break ground on its third wafer fab in the US in June. In a statement, TSMC said it does not comment on market speculation, but that its investments in Arizona are proceeding well. TSMC is investing more than US$65 billion in Arizona to build three advanced wafer fabs. The first one has started production using the 4-nanometer (nm) process, while the second one would start mass production using the
A TAIWAN DEAL: TSMC is in early talks to fully operate Intel’s US semiconductor factories in a deal first raised by Trump officials, but Intel’s interest is uncertain Broadcom Inc has had informal talks with its advisers about making a bid for Intel Corp’s chip-design and marketing business, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Nothing has been submitted to Intel and Broadcom could decide not to pursue a deal, according to the Journal. Bloomberg News earlier reported that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is in early talks for a controlling stake in Intel’s factories at the request of officials at US President Donald Trump’s administration, as the president looks to boost US manufacturing and maintain the country’s leadership in critical technologies. Trump officials raised the
‘SILVER LINING’: Although the news caused TSMC to fall on the local market, an analyst said that as tariffs are not set to go into effect until April, there is still time for negotiations US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he would likely impose tariffs on semiconductor, automobile and pharmaceutical imports of about 25 percent, with an announcement coming as soon as April 2 in a move that would represent a dramatic widening of the US leader’s trade war. “I probably will tell you that on April 2, but it’ll be in the neighborhood of 25 percent,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club when asked about his plan for auto tariffs. Asked about similar levies on pharmaceutical drugs and semiconductors, the president said that “it’ll be 25 percent and higher, and it’ll
CHIP BOOM: Revenue for the semiconductor industry is set to reach US$1 trillion by 2032, opening up opportunities for the chip pacakging and testing company, it said ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控), the world’s largest provider of outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) services, yesterday launched a new advanced manufacturing facility in Penang, Malaysia, aiming to meet growing demand for emerging technologies such as generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The US$300 million facility is a critical step in expanding ASE’s global footprint, offering an alternative for customers from the US, Europe, Japan, South Korea and China to assemble and test chips outside of Taiwan amid efforts to diversify supply chains. The plant, the company’s fifth in Malaysia, is part of a strategic expansion plan that would more than triple
RSS