Taiwan stocks down slightly, early buying taken over by tech concerns

[TAIPEI] Taiwan stocks were slightly down on Tuesday as early bargain-hunting gave way to concerns about the near-term outlook for local tech companies, and on global market weakness.

The main TAIEX index was off 0.1 per cent at 9,656.40 as of 0203 GMT, after closing down 0.3 per cent on Monday. The index has fallen nearly 2 per cent since the start of the month.

Tech shares were under pressure. Quanta Computer was down 2.7 per cent after posting a 7 per cent fall on year in its April sales, while Acer was off 4 per cent after it reported a near 18 per cent drop in April sales from a year earlier.

Compal Electronics was down 7 per cent after it reported its first-quarter net profit halved to T$2.01 billion from the fourth quarter of 2014.

The broader electronics subindex was down 0.6 per cent.

The Taiwan dollar was up T$0.031 at T$30.749 to the U.S. dollar.

REUTERS