Staff writer, with CNA
Shares in Taiwan suffered their third-steepest point fall in history yesterday, dragged down by the bellwether electronics sector after heavy losses among tech stocks on Wall Street overnight.The TAIEX ended down 1,683.50 points, or 3.64 percent, at 44,571.76, with selling across the board.Yesterday’s point loss follows falls of 2,065.87 points on April 7 last year and 1,807.21 points on Aug. 5, 2024, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
A woman stands in front of an electronic stock board at the Taiwan Stock Exchange in Taipei on Wednesday.
“Investors punished US tech stocks after Apple Inc and Microsoft Corp raised the prices of some of their products due to a spike in memory chip and storage device prices, fearing the price hikes would hurt end-user demand,” Concord Securities Co (康和證券) analyst Kerry Huang (黃志祺) said.The companies’ announcements dampened sentiment that had been boosted the previous day by forecast-busting results from US chip giant Micron Technology Inc.
The electronics index fell 3.91 percent, with contract chipmakers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) losing 2.09 percent and United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) down 8.12 percent, while chip designers MediaTek Inc (聯發科) plunged 10 percent and Aichip Technologies Inc (世芯) shed 8.51 percent.Power management solution provider Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) shed 8.59 percent and Yageo Corp (國巨), the world’s third largest multi-layer ceramic capacitor maker, dipped 10 percent.“With electronics component prices on the rise, major cloud service providers’ investments could be affected, which would also hurt Taiwan’s suppliers,” Huang said.Elsewhere in Asia, Seoul’s KOSPI dived around 9 percent in afternoon trade, before finishing almost six percent off.Chip giants and market heavyweight SK Hynix Inc shed more than eight percent and Samsung Electronics Co lost 5.3 percent. The rout sparked a 20-minute trading halt of KOSPI-listed shares.Tokyo, also heavy with tech firms, shed more than 4 percent. Tech investment giant Softbank Group Corp plunged more than 12 percent as the New York Times reported that ChatGPT-maker OpenAI is considering holding off an initial public offering until next year.There were also steep losses in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Jakarta, Manila and Bangkok.The tech sector has been the main driver of a surge to record highs across several markets globally amid an eye-watering boom in all things artificial intelligence.However, that euphoria appears to be waning on worries that company valuations look stretched, amid questions about when firms will see a return on the trillions of dollars that has been invested.“Investors are taking their time and picking winners in the AI trade, while discarding others,” XTB Group research director Kathleen Brooks said.The losses came even as investors pared expectations for US interest rate hikes after data showed the Federal Reserve’s favored gauge of inflation came in slightly lower than expected last month.Additional reporting by AFP
