I was wonderingā¦
Does anybody here actually invest money in Taiwan? 
Bonds, Stocks, busines? :?
I am getting a little ticked off with the 1% interest rate on $ in the bank!
The stockmarketās in the tank right now, but that could ba contrarian thing, rightā¦ a buy signal?
Whatdoyathink?
Mod! Can you put this in the right forum, please? I couldnāt figure out which oneās best!
KenTaiwan98
Iāve bought and made money in stocks in Taiwan. I donāt have my own brokerage account and so had to buy through a friend. The great thing about investing in Taiwan stocks is no cap gains tax. I think you probably missed the best time to buy recently; Taiwan stocks hit their low for the year on Oct. 9. You might want to try gambling on DRAM stocks, betting that PC demand will rebound and thus drive up memory prices.
Thanks Ken,
Since segue has no āFinancial Forumā yet, I suppose it fits quite nicely here.
There was a very good thread a while back detailing this exact subject, but I canāt remember the title of it. (Can anyone recall?) When Iāve more time, Iāll see if I can dig it up and paste the link here.
You might try posting similarly on the amcham forum and see if any movers and shakers respondā¦
Your local bank such as China Trust can handle everything from your checking account to investing.
Yes, Iām sure they can.
But that wasnāt the point of the question! 
Has anyone experience of investing here?
What are their preferences?
Any one try investing in bonds, etc?
Iām curious to know what options there are for LOCAL investment options for us Expat foreigners. Banks only have the barest minimum of stuff usually, such as mutual funds (correct me if Iām wrongā¦)
Kenneth
Kenneth,
I was curious about the subject too. For one, I donāt understand why my girlfriend gets so excited about dividends that it hardly seems to matter to her whether the share price is going up or down. I tried to do some research on local stocks, particularly Hon Hai, but came to the conclusion that there is much less information available than for US companies, particularly in English. Even charts of past performance seem much harder to come by. And what info there is I would be highly sceptical of. If one canāt trust financial statements in the US, surely theyāre even less reliable here. So I concluded that investing here (for one who canāt read Chinese anyway) would basically mean taking gambles based on the recommendations of others. I sent my money back home instead.
Is there a mover and/or shaker in our midsts that could answer this? Iām a tad curious myself. Maybe it should be in the Living in Taiwan Forum. That gives me a poll idea. :!:
These two other threads are somewhat related to your question KenTaiwan98.
Taiwan stocks usually rise in the winter, meaning that you buy in November and sit back and wait for spring, where you can unload your shares and freeze your gains. However shares have not bounced that much this year, meaning that they a) either will stay in a holding pattern as they are now, or b) take off before Chinese new year.
If I were a foreigner here with a mid- to long term mindset, I would avoid tips handed to me by locals, as they very often trade like crazy, donāt care about any longer term than 24 hrs and donāt pay to much heed to fundamentals etc.
I would stick to trusted and tried names, such as TSMC, UMC, Compal, Quanta, Asustek etc. All those companies are big, have a commanding market position (in the real market, not the stock market) and are likely to be around in 5 years time.
All, who donāt read chinese should stick with big cap shares and have a long-term investment horizon.
Getting access to a Bloomberg terminal would be helpful. Also, all the major brokerages put out research in English. In addition, try MrTaiwan.com.tw for info on the Taiwan market.
Bloomberg boxes are pretty expensive, so that advice only applies to industry insiders, who donāt need that much advice, as they usually are part of a floor of research analysts. For what itās worth, try the english language web sites of mrtaiwan.com and www.primasia.com. They do push ideas in english and tend to make parts of their research publicly available for free.
Oh, Mother Theresa? That stock dividend thing is a scam. Top management cut the cake finer, keep a few slices to themselves or for distribution to luckier employees, and give you some more paper, which totally represents a smaller part of the company than the one you had before they distributed the dividend. (Also known as dilution). The locals seem to like itā¦ Beats me why.