Taiwan stocks closed down 2.72 percent on Thursday at a fresh five-year closing low, with investors offloading shares across the board a day after the government said it would lower the 2009 economic growth forecast. The main TAIEX share index closed 132.08 points lower at 4,730.51 after touching its lowest point since June 2003.
Turnover shrank to T$25.727 billion ($770 million), the lowest at least since August 2004, exchange data showed. The market was prevented from matching the more drastic falls seen on Wall Street's major indexes overnight and on other Asian markets due to a temporary rule that halves the down limit of individual stocks to 3.5 percent. The government has said the measure will end this Friday.
"Because of the trading limit and the more drastic falls we've seen in other Asian markets, unless there's a huge overnight jump on Wall Street, Taiwan stocks should continue their fall tomorrow," said Alex Huang of Mega International Securities.
Many of the island's blue chips were badly hit. Hon Hai, Taiwan's top electronic parts maker, went limit-down for a fourth consecutive day ahead of its third-quarter earnings results, which it must release by the end of the month.
Fears of slowing consumer demand for products sold by Hon Hai's clients heading into the holiday shopping season also drove investors away from the company.
Other technology shares that dived included smartphone maker HTC Corp, PC makers Acer and Asustek, and contract notebook maker Compal Electronics, all fell by their 3.5 percent daily limit.
Tech bellwether TSMC also joined in the freefall to close limit down despite Japanese media reports that Renesas Technology Corp would outsource some of its chip production to them.
Financial shares were also affected by the market's fall. Shin Kong Financial, which had said a day earlier that it would be receiving T$8 billion from Japan's Dai-ichi Life Insurance, reversed the previous day's gains to end limit down. Fubon Financial and Cathay Financial closed limit down. Taishin Financial lost 2.25 percent.
All of the TAIEX's sub-indexes that measure performance by industries fell, with the electronics sub-index losing 2.84 percent. The semiconductor and the banking and insurance sub-indexes both fell more than 3 percent.