Taiwan shares fell 0.10 percent on Tuesday, taking a break after hitting a 6-1/2-year high, as losses in tech heavyweights such as TSMC offset gains in smaller cyclical firms that are riding on a demand boom.
The main TAIEX share index ended down 8.17 points at 8,048.39, pulling back from a nearly 10 percent rebound from the year's trough on March 5. Turnover was flat with Monday at T$113.7 billion ($3.45 billion).
"People have worries over corporate quarterly earnings and we will see more pressure on tech companies in late April," said Kevin Yeh, assistant vice president at Grand Cathay Securities.
A slew of major technology firms in Taiwan are set to release their first-quarter profits in late April and the focus is also on whether tech demand will recover from the second quarter after new-generation electronics products hit the store shelves.
Shares in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC), the world's top contract chip maker, lost 0.72 percent, pulling the electronics sub-index down 0.31 percent. TSMC reported a 19 percent fall in March sales as the market closed. Hon Hai Precision Industry, a big exporter of electronics components, shed 0.66 percent, but TSMC's smaller rival United Microelectronics Corp (UMC) was up 0.52 percent.
The financial sector was off 0.2 percent before Cathay Financial, Taiwan's top financial holding firm, posts its quarterly results later in the afternoon. Cathay shares gained 0.43 percent. On the bright side, some textile and plastics firms topped the list of the most active shares.
Shinkong Synthetic Fibres Corp shot up 4.31 percent after going the daily 7 percent limit on Monday. China Steel Corp, the island's biggest steel producer, gained 0.89 percent. "Their first-quarter earnings should be good if you take a look at growing demand and the recent rise on product prices," Grand Cathay's Yeh said.
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