Taiwan stocks close lower

The Taiwan stock market fell 1.34 percent on Friday as Wall Street declined overnight on rising oil prices which dragged down shares like heavyweight Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.
The benchmark TAIEX dropped 89.30 points to 6,553.66 and the heavily weighted electronics sub-index declined 1.49 percent. "The index is quite weak at this stage and we are conservative and cautious during this low season as the market wavers between 6,500 to 6,600 points," said Li Fang-kuo, head of market research at Sinopac Holdings.
Local newspapers also stated that a foreign brokerage is not optimistic about the Taiwan market and has downgraded its rating on the local index. HTC shares have rose 16 percent since the beginning of 2006.
Consolidation in the competitive mobile phone market is also likely to happen as company executives and analysts told Reuters at the Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit in Hong Kong that merger actions will be inevitable in the cell phone industry.
TSMC, the market's most heavily weighted stock, declined 1.44 percent and was the most active stock on the market. Smaller rival United Microelectronics Corp rose 0.77 percent.
CMC Magnetics Corp told Reuters that the fire which hit one of its older factories on Thursday in Taiwan had destroyed the firm's CD ROM disk production line.
All the equipment and machines were insured and there had been no casualties. The factory supplied 9 million CD ROM disks per month for global distribution and CMC shares dropped 1.44 percent to T$10.25.
Fubon Financial Taiwan's fifth-largest financial holding firm said late on Thursday it expected its profit to rise in 2006. Fubon's shares fell 1.69 percent.
Solar cell maker Motech Industries Inc continued to rise 3.25 percent to T$795 amid optimism that higher oil prices would spur demand for alternative energy sources.
Taiwan's BenQ Corp, which took over Germany's Siemens AG in October last year, is gaining popularity as mobile phone demand grow. BenQ's shares rose 0.31 percent and the firm will announce fourth-quarter earnings later this month.