Taiwan stocks ended up 0.16 percent on Monday, paced by gains in cement and glass companies, but Formosa Plastics and Nan Ya Plastics slumped on media reports the companies were ordered to halt production at some of their plants. The benchmark TAIEX index rose 13.68 points to 8,823.68, led by cement and glass , both gaining over 4.6 percent.
Plastics was the top losing sector, down 2.57 percent, with Formosa Plastics 3.5 percent lower and Nan Ya off 5.5 percent. Reports said the two were being told to close production at one plant each following a fire at a Formosa facility this month. "Any halt of their production would be a shock to the supply chain," said Bevin Yeh, a fund manager of Prudential Financial in Taipei.
He sees the broader market trading at 8,400-8,800 points through the second quarter. Topping the most active list by turnover was HTC, slipping 0.85 percent. The smartphone maker denied a newspaper report on Monday that cited a Citigroup research report as saying Microsoft was intending to raise the royalty fee for HTC for Microsoft's applications on the Android platform.
EVA Airways jumped 4.1 percent. Taiwan's No 2 carrier has agreed to plead guilty to being part of a broad conspiracy to fix the price of air cargo shipping and will pay a $13.2 million fine, the US Justice Department said on Friday. Foreign investors were net sellers on Friday, widening their total net selling to T$30.5 billion so far this month.