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HANOI/TAIPEH (Reuters): Taiwanese shares tanked to a one-month low on Monday with the Taiwanese dollar leading losses among subdued Asian currencies, while China's central bank cut key interest rates in a surprise move to boost consumer confidence amid shaky growth.
Taiwan stocks slumped as much as 3.2% at 22,130.9, its steepest percentage loss since April 19, after concerns around trade disruptions, including further curbs by Washington on semiconductor sales to China hurt risk appetite.
The Taiwanese dollar followed suit to retreat 0.5% to its lowest since mid-March 2016.
The US dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of major currencies, eased 0.1% to 104.3 after US President Joe Biden announced an end to his reelection campaign.
In Southe-East Asia, the South Korean won fell 0.2%, while the Indonesian rupiah reversed earlier losses to add 0.2%. The Philippine peso lost 0.1%.
In Taiwan, the declines in the benchmark were largely led by technology firms and local chip stocks, with TSMC, Asia's most valuable listed company, having lost more than 2%.
TSMC in particular has been under pressure since last week following comments from Donald Trump, the US Republican presidential candidate, that Taiwan should pay to be defended and accusing the island of stealing American chip business.
Last week, stocks in Taiwan marked their heaviest weekly drop in three months, though the benchmark is the best performer in the region having added over 24% so far this year.
"But, on an overall basis, the Taiwan stock market has been performing quite well, so perhaps a recent weakness could also be that investors are taking profits off the table, given that in the coming months, there will be more volatility with U.S. elections in November," Lloyd Chan, Senior Currency Analyst at MUFG said.
In China, the central bank surprised markets by lowering a key short-term policy rate to 3.35% from 3.45% to boost confidence in the world's second-largest economy that is verging on deflation and faces a prolonged property crisis.
The Chinese yuan was largely unchanged and stocks in Shanghai dropped 0.7%.
The Singapore dollar and shares traded flat with investor focus now turning to an inflation print due on Tuesday followed by a policy meeting by its central bank on Wednesday.
Equities in Asia were largely mixed with those in Kuala Lumpur and Seoul losing more than 1% each, while shares in Manila and Jakarta added over 0.3%. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan, in which TSMC has an 11% weightage, was down 0.6% in its sixth successive day of losses. - Reuters
