Taiwan shares rose 0.95 percent to a six-month closing high on Tuesday, as a bullish forecast by Samsung Electronics spurred investor hopes of strong demand for local memory chip makers like Powerchip. The main TAIEX share index finished at 7,204.04 points, slightly below the 7,278.96 closing level on May 12.
Leading the way was a 1.26 percent jump in the heavily weighted electronics sub-index. Turnover was active at T$109.7 billion (US $3.3 billion), up from T$83.8 billion in the previous session. "The forecast by Samsung suggests the DRAM industry will trend upwards nex year in demand and product prices," said Clare Sun, who manages T$4.15 billion (US $127 million) for Mega Securities' propriety trading department. Sun said she has been accumulating some technology and banking stocks.
Samsung, the world's top memory chip maker, predicted on Monday "very strong" demand for the first quarter of 2007, thanks to the much-awaited January launch of Microsoft Corp's new Vista operating system.
New operating systems typically stimulate fresh demand for personal computers that require more dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips used in PCs. Companies that make DRAM chips were among the top five most active by volume, with Powerchip, Taiwan's top DRAM maker, jumping 4.41 percent.
Nanya Technology Corp, Taiwan's No 2 DRAM player, soared by the daily 7 percent limit. Inotera Memories Inc, Nanya's 50-50 DRAM joint venture with Germany's Infineon Technologies AG, also went limit-up. Taiwan Co-operative Bank (TCB), Taiwan's top bank by branches and loan portfolio, ended 0.22 percent higher.