TSMC falls below NT$1,000; Taiex ends down 2.26 percent

Taipei, July 19 (CNA) The Taiwan Stock Exchange's benchmark index tumbled 2.26 percent on Friday, dragged down by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) as investors in Taiwan reacted to lackluster performances by tech stocks in the United States in recent days.

The Taiex fell 529.21 points, or 2.26 percent, to 22,869.26 on Friday on turnover of NT$537.564 billion (US$16.42 billion), completing a week in which it fell 4.4 percent, including 3.8 percent in the last two sessions.

TSMC

The tumble mirrored drops of 3.4 percent in the tech-heavy Nasdaq index and of 6.3 percent in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index over the past two sessions (July 17-18) in the U.S. as the tech boom that has sent stocks soaring in recent months has slowed.

In Taiwan on Friday, TSMC closed down 3.48 percent at NT$970.00 despite reported the highest profits for a second quarter in the company's history a day earlier.

It was the first time TSMC had closed below NT$1,000 since July 3, and the stock's fall contributed to a 2.54 percent decline in the electronics index and a 3.21 percent slide in the semiconductor sub-index during the session.

The continuing strong demand for the company's Chip on Wafer on Substrate (CoWoS) technology, however, boosted so-called CoWos "concept stocks."

CoWos concept stocks

They included semiconductor equipment companies, green energy companies, and water recycling and industrial filter manufacturing companies, which rose by between 1 percent and more than 5 percent.

Among them, semiconductor wet processing equipment provider Grand Process Technology Corp. closed 9.73 percent higher at NT$1,410.00, and semiconductor solutions supplier Scientech Corp. rose by the maximum 10 percent to NT$420.00.

Many high-priced stocks closed lower, however. Lens-maker Largan Precision Co. ended 3.65 percent lower at NT$2,900.00, and application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer Alchip Technologies lost 3.72 percent to close at NT$2,715.00

Wistron's cloud application subsidiary Wiwynn Corp. slid 3.08 percent to close at NT$2,205.00, and eMemory Technology Inc. plummeted 5.77 percent to end at NT$2,450.00

Bucking the trend was fabless IC design company Aspeed Technology Inc., which ended 2.28 percent higher at NT$4,265.00

Hon Hai Precision Industry Inc., better known globally as Foxconn, remained unchanged at NT$204.00.

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