Renewed Consolidation Likely For Taiwan Stock Market

(RTTNews) - Ahead of Friday's holiday for Double Tenth Day, the Taiwan stock market had moved higher again - one day after ending the five-day winning streak in which it had accelerated more than 1,630 points or 6.4 percent. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now sits just above the 27,300-point plateau although it may hand back those gains on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is bleak on concerns of an escalation in the trade war between U.S. and China. The European and U.S. markets were sharply lower and the Asian bourses are expected to follow that lead.

The TSE finished modestly higher on Thursday following gains from the plastics and mixed performances from the financial shares and technology stocks.

For the day, the index rallied 238.24 points or 0.88 percent to finish at 27,301.92 after trading between 27,253.07 and 27,463.12.

Among the actives, Mega Financial perked 0.12 percent, while First Financial skidded 1.03 percent, Fubon Financial collected 2.16 percent, E Sun Financial added 0.61 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company gained 1.77 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation strengthened 1.56 percent, Hon Hai Precision declined 1.56 percent, Largan Precision shed 0.60 percent, Catcher Technology retreated 1.36 percent, MediaTek improved 0.75 percent, Delta Electronics rallied 1.83 percent, Novatek Microelectronics fell 0.24 percent, Formosa Plastics climbed 1.03 percent, Nan Ya Plastics jumped 1.91 percent, Asia Cement shed 0.40 percent and Cathay Financial and CTBC Financial were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is broadly negative as the major averages opened roughly flat on Friday put plummeted in the late morning and finished deep in the red at session lows.

The Dow plunged 878.82 points or 1.90 percent to finish at 45,479.60, while the NASDAQ crashed 820.20 points or 3.56 percent to close at 22,204.43 and the S&P 500 stumbled 182.60 points or 2.71 percent to end at 6,552.51.

For the week, the Dow dove 2.7 percent, the NASDAQ slumped 2.5 percent and the S&P sank 2.4 percent.

The sell-off on Wall Street came after President Donald Trump threatened to retaliate against China's expansion of export controls on rare earths. Trump accused China of "becoming very hostile" in a post on social media platform Truth Social and threatened a "massive increase" in tariffs on Chinese products coming into the U.S.

In U.S. economic news, a report released by the University of Michigan said its reading on U.S. consumer sentiment was unchanged in October, while year-ahead inflation expectations ebbed to 4.6 percent from 4.7 percent in September.

Crude oil prices tumbled on Friday after Trump threatened to massively increases tariffs on China in retaliation for its expansion of export controls on rare earths. West Texas Intermediate crude for November delivery was down $2.69 or 4.37 percent at $58.82 per barrel.