The Taiwan Monthly

Apr. 2021

Market & ETP Overview

The Wall Street bull coincides with the year of bull in Taiwan

The Taiwan securities market has delivered strong returns during the last five years. Since the transition of power in May 2016, TAIEX keeps on breaking its historical highs with an increase of 95.2%, second only to NASDAQ globally (see the chart below). Additionally, the annualized rate of return jumped as high as 20.2%. Since the past two decades, the TWSE market has generated high ROI of 11.2%, with first-rate price performance and steady dividends delivered by listed companies.

(Data period: 2016/5/20-2021/2/5)

Strong Foundations for TWSE-listed Companies

The TAIEX superior return rate is backed by the concrete fundamentals of its listed companies. In the past 30 years, the electronics industry’s contribution to the market increased from 2% to 67%, as highly competitive and globally recognized tech companies greatly contributed to the backbone of our economy. This industry’s revenue and profit were a significant part of our price momentum, especially in 2020 (see the table below).

 

Table: Increase in electronics industry’s revenue, profit, and share price in 2020

 

New Trading Measures Lead to Structural Changes

As two major trading measures were implemented last year, there have been some favorable changes in the Taiwan market. After launching continuous trading in March 2020, trading efficiency was enhanced with orders up nearly 50% and trading value up 80%. Furthermore, the odd lot trading value quadrupled after the implementation of intraday trading mechanism in October 2020; this attracted 740,000 participants, with younger investors under the age of 30 increasing 140%.

With various youth-friendly investment measures in place, the TWSE observes stronger investor participation. A record high of 1.32 million investors opened new accounts last year. New generations of investors has emerged with an accumulated total of 1.51 million investors under the age of 30.

 

Prosperous Market for All

The prosperity of our securities market was shared not only among the investors, but also the general public. Net profit before tax of NT$81.7 billion was reported by the growing securities and futures sectors. Government funds reported profits of NT$972 billion in the last two years, accumulating NT$1.35 trillion in the last five years, to the benefit of the insured public. Taxes derived from securities and futures trading reached a record high of NT$157.8 billion, contributing to government finances.

 

For further information, please contact Mr. Lin at 1241@twse.com.tw.