Stabilization fund readies for possible stock market intervention

Taipei, April 8 (CNA) The management committee of Taiwan's National Financial Stabilization Fund on Tuesday authorized an intervention in the stock market to ease volatility and reassure investors as shares in the local bourse continued to reel on uncertainty from sweeping global tariffs imposed by the United States.

The committee responsible for the NT$500 billion (US$15.16 billion) fund under the Executive Yuan met on Tuesday, moving up a meeting originally scheduled for next Monday, and authorized the intervention in the market to occur as early as Wednesday.

It would be the ninth intervention since the fund was established in 2000.

The committee's move came after the Taiex, the benchmark weighted index on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, plunged 2,065.87 points, or 9.7 percent, on Monday in the largest decline in its history.

The index fell another 4.02 percent on Tuesday, with volatility likely to continue on Wednesday when higher individualized tariffs -- including a 32-percent tariff the Trump administration has imposed on Taiwan -- will take effect.

The National Financial Stabilization Fund has previously been used to support the stock market in 2000 (twice), 2004, 2008, 2011, 2015, 2020 and 2022.

The fund's largest intervention by volume was in October 2000, when it entered the market with NT$120 billion amid fears over the dotcom bubble, spiking oil prices, and the suspension of construction on Taiwan's No. 4 nuclear plant.

The fund's longest intervention, at 275 days, was made with a comparatively small NT$54.51 billion in July 2022, as anxiety spread in the market following a report showing rising U.S. inflation.