Taiwan stocks tumble following US market rout on tech shares
The Taiwan Stock Exchange Weighted Index (TAIEX) fell almost 500 points, breaching the 16,000 barrier to close at 15,953 points, a drop of 3.03% from the yesterday’s close of 16,452, falling below the 5-day, 10-day, and monthly moving average on the last day of trading for the month today, Friday, February 26.
The trading day saw a large volume sell-off in late trading, including a single transaction that saw 34,323 shares of TSMC (TWSE: 2330) shares sold worth a total of NT$20.799 billion. TSMC closed at NT$606, down 4.57%.
Another tech giant, Hon Hai Precision Industry (TWSE: 2317) closed at NT$112, down 3.86%.
Today’s TAIEX tumble followed a rout in tech stocks in US markets that saw the Nasdaq fall 3.5% after rising bond yields triggered a broad sell-off that erased weekly gains, seeing the steepest declines since October.
Heavy selling in technology and communications companies saw the S&P 500 fall 2.4%.
The PHLX Semiconductor Sector (SOX), which is highly correlated with Taiwan stocks, fell the deepest, dropping 184.58 points, or 5.8%
MSCI recently announced a reduction in the weight of Taiwan holding in it’s MSCI Global Emerging Markets index from 13.37% to 13.27%, which also contributed to the late trading sell-offs as foreign passive funds adjusted their own weighting accordingly.
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