Steady Start Eyed For Taiwan Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market has moved lower in consecutive trading days, slumping more than 110 points or 0.7 percent along the way. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now sits just beneath the 17,330-point plateau and it may find traction on Wednesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets offers little clarity ahead of key U.S. employment data later this week. The European and U.S. markets were mixed and little changed and the Asian bourses figure to follow suit.

The TSE finished modestly lower on Tuesday following losses from the financial shares, technology stocks and plastics companies.

For the day, the index lost 93.47 points or 0.54 percent to finish at 17,328.01 after trading between 17,252.57 and 17,401.59.

Among the actives, Cathay Financial retreated 1.51 percent, while Mega Financial eased 0.13 percent, CTBC Financial lost 0.56 percent, Fubon Financial fell 0.47 percent, E Sun Financial collected 0.79 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company sank 0.70 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation tumbled 1.99 percent, Largan Precision dipped 0.21 percent, Catcher Technology dropped 0.77 percent, MediaTek shed 0.43 percent, Delta Electronics plunged 3.12 percent, Novatek Microelectronics tanked 2.14 percent, Formosa Plastics dipped 0.25 percent, Asia Cement was down 0.36 percent, Taiwan Cement rallied 2.50 percent, China Steel rose 0.19 percent and Hon Hai Precision, First Financial and Nan Ya Plastics were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is again inconsistent as the major averages opened lower on Tuesday. The NASDAQ quickly broke into the green and ended positive, but the Dow and S&P stayed in the red.

The Dow shed 79.88 points or 0.22 percent to finish at 36,124.56, while the NASDAQ gained 44.42 points or 0.31 percent to close at 14,229.91 and the S&P 500 fell 2.60 points or 0.06 percent to end at 4,567.18.

The initial weakness on Wall Street came as traders continued to cash in on recent strength in the markets amid concerns optimism about the outlook for interest rates has led to overbought conditions.

While the Federal Reserve is widely expected to leave interest rates unchanged in the coming months, traders may need more evidence to solidify hopes of a rate cut in the near future.

The subsequent rebound came as a Labor Department report may have reinforced those hopes, showing a bigger than expected decrease in U.S. job openings in October.

Oil prices dropped on Tuesday for a fourth straight session, on lingering concerns about the outlook for demand and on disappointment over the small size of additional output cuts announced by OPEC. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for January ended down $0.72 or 1 percent at $72.32 a barrel.

Closer to home, Taiwan will provide November numbers for consumer prices later today; in October, overall inflation was up 0.33 percent on month and 3.05 percent on year.