Taiwan: Stocks up on bargain hunting, weaker TWD to support exports

[TAIPEI] Taiwan stocks rose on Thursday on value buying following three days of losses and as a weaker Taiwan dollar supported optimism for the trade-reliant economy.

As of 0157 GMT, the main TAIEX index was up 58.85 points, or 0.62 per cent, to 9,582.03, after closing down 0.14 per cent on Wednesday, its third straight losing session.

The Taiwan dollar was down T$0.064 to stand at T$31.730 to the U.S. dollar. The local currency has been weakening in the past few days to rise above T$31.7 against the U.S. dollar, a level it has not hit since the start of this year. A weaker currency makes Taiwan's exports more competitive in the international market.

The Taiwan dollar also tracks the Korean won as the two economies compete in the export market. South Korea cut rates unexpectedly on Thursday.

Buying in shares was broad based. The electronics subindex was up 0.6 per cent, the financial gained 0.7 per cent, plastics rose 0.8 per cent while the transport index edged up 0.1 per cent.

Heavily weighted bellwether chipmaker TSMC was 1.4 per cent higher.

REUTERS