Taiwan stocks rose 0.4 percent on Thursday as investors looked for value in small-cap growth issues such as Epistar after share sales by foreign investors dragged the market lower for five days in a row.
The main TAIEX share index ended up 30.11 points at 7,480.41, while turnover fell to T$95.99 billion ($2.94 billion) from T$110.56 billion in the previous session. Before Thursday's rebound, the index had fallen 3 percent since reaching its highest close in more than six years last Wednesday.
"We've been talking about the Vista effect for a long time and many PC-related shares had risen a lot, so investors are searching for value in some laggards," said Chiang Chen-sheng, manager at Masterlink Investment Advisory.
Market heavyweight Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC), which supplies microchips for computers and mobile phones, fell 1.23 percent, while LED chip maker Epistar Corp jumped 4.8 percent.
Light emitting diode (LED) chips are mostly used in mobile phones and investors are betting on new applications used in cars, notebook computers and LCD televisions. Ignoring weakness on US tech shares, the bellwether electronics sub-index gained 0.55 percent. The financial sector finished up 0.16 percent.
Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp gained 1.61 percent after a source said on Thursday its parent firm sold $350 million worth of bonds exchangeable for shares of the LCD screen maker.
Chinatrust Financial rose 0.55 percent even after saying that it expected to make more bad-loan provisions for this year. The gains came after the financial firm said on Thursday that larger rival Fubon Financial had purchased about T$1 billion worth of its stock, promoting merger speculation in the banking industry.
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