Soft Start Seen For Taiwan Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market on Tuesday snapped the two-day slide in which it had slumped more than 1,550 points or 5 percent. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now sits just above the 32,770-point plateau although it's tipped to open under pressure on Wednesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is fairly flat as traders await further developments in the Middle East conflict. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourses were mixed and flat and the Asian markets are likely to follow the latter lead.

The TSE finished sharply higher on Tuesday following gains from the technology stocks and a mixed picture from the finance and plastic sectors.

For the day, the index rallied 661.45 points or 2.06 percent to finish at 32,771.87 after trading between 32,455.20 and 33,256.69.

Among the actives, Cathay Financial perked 0.17 percent, while Mega Financial fell 0.38 percent, First Financial lost 0.34 percent, Fubon Financial collected 1.26 percent, E Sun Financial was up 0.15 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company rallied 2.21 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation climbed 1.17 percent, Hon Hai Precision shed 0.48 percent, Largan Precision added 0.66 percent, Catcher Technology rose 0.27 percent, MediaTek spiked 2.40 percent, Delta Electronics surged 5.74 percent, Novatek Microelectronics strengthened 1.45 percent, Formosa Plastics tumbled 1.80 percent, Nan Ya Plastics soared 4.86 percent and Asia Cement and CTBC Financial were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street offers little clarity as the major averages opened lower but quickly moved higher and spent most of the day in the green before a late fade saw them end mixed and little changed.

The Dow dipped 34.29 points or 0.07 percent to finish at 47,706.51, while the NASDAQ perked 1.16 points or 0.01 percent to close at 22,697.10 and the S&P 500 fell 14.51 points or 0.21 percent to end at 6,781.48.

The choppy trading on Wall Street came amid substantial volatility by the price of crude oil, with crude for April delivery plummeting almost 12 percent after soaring to nearly $120 a barrel on Monday.

Crude oil prices plunged on Tuesday after Trump said that the ongoing war would end "very soon" but provided no details. The conflict has driven oil prices to sky-high levels in recent days. West Texas Intermediate crude for April delivery tumbled $9.47 or 9.99 percent at $85.30 per barrel.

Traders also seemed to be expressing some uncertainty about the U.S. war with Iran after President Donald Trump's latest remarks about the conflict.

The president claimed in a subsequent post on Truth Social that Iran would be hit "twenty times harder" if they do anything that stops the flow of oil within the Strait of Hormuz.