Taiwan stocks slump on Wall St; techs, banks weigh

TAIPEI: Taiwan stocks fell 2.33 percent on Monday, joining regional bourses in sharp declines as weak US employment data heightened fears of a global recession.

Market sentiment turned cautious after the over 2 percent drop on Wall Street and foreign selling on Friday, triggering selling across the board in Taiwan market.

"The global economy's outlook is really shaky. The Fed has signalled it will keep US interest rates at the current level for at least one to two years, and the euro zone's debt problems remain," said Chu Yen-min, a vice president at KGI Securities.

"Having said that, we would not see the kind of panic selling that occurred in August," Chu said, forecasting the main index to trade between 7,148 and 8,000 points in the short term.

At about 0145 GMT, the TAIEX index had slumped 181.01 points to 7,576.05, weighed by plastics , construction and banks , all down nearly 3 percent.

Tech exporters fell, with smartphone maker HTC shedding 3.2 percent and chip maker TSMC down 1.78 percent. Electronics shares lost 2.3 percent.

The Taiwan dollar weakened slightly to stand at T$29.041.

Foreign investors were net sellers on Friday, capping their total buying at T$3.4 billion this month.

Copyright Reuters, 2011