Taiwan Bourse May Remain Rangebound On Thursday

(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market has moved higher in two of three trading days since the end of the two-day slide in which it had slumped more than 220 points or 0.8 percent. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now sits just shy of the 28,300-point plateau although it may tick lower again on Thursday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is murky on easing optimism over the outlook for interest rates. The European and U.S. markets were mixed and the Asian bourses are likely to follow suit.

The TSE finished sharply higher on Wednesday following gains from the financials, losses from the plastics and a mixed picture from the technology stocks. For the day, the index jumped 345.63 points or 1.24 percent to finish at 28,294.74 after trading between 28,139.65 and 28,395.31. Among the actives, Mega Financial shed 0.61 percent, while CTBC Financial rose 0.24 percent, First Financial perked 0.17 percent, Fubon Financial advanced 0.99 percent, E Sun Financial collected 0.67 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company rallied 2.03 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation dropped 0.87 percent, Hon Hai Precision soared 4.00 percent, Catcher Technology lost 0.50 percent, MediaTek skidded 1.14 percent, Delta Electronics retreated 1.40 percent, Novatek Microelectronics sank 0.74 percent, Formosa Plastics declined 1.39 percent, Nan Ya Plastics fell 0.59 percent, Asia Cement slumped 0.82 percent and Cathay Financial and Largan Precision were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street offers little clarity as the major averages opened higher and stayed that way for much of the day before slumping late in the session to finish mixed and little changed.

The Dow slipped 74.37 points or 0.16 percent to finish at 47,632.00, while the NASDAQ climbed 130.98 points or 0.55 percent to finish at a record 23,958.47 and the S&P 500 dipped 0.30 points or 0.00 percent to end at 6,890.59.

Early support came from the tech shares after Nvidia (NVDA) became the first company with a $5 trillion market capitalization.

The late-day weakness followed Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's comments after the central bank's monetary policy announcement. While the Fed lowered interest rates by another quarter point as expected, Powell's post-meeting remarks offset optimism for another rate cut in December.

Powell said a further reduction in rates in December is "not a foregone conclusion," noting Fed officials had "strongly differing views about how to proceed" at the final meeting of the year.

Highlighting the high level of uncertainty due to government shutdown delaying key data, Powell also said there's a "growing chorus" that feels the Fed should "wait a cycle" to continue cutting rates.

Crude oil prices bounced higher on Wednesday after a report from the Energy Information Administration showed a steep drop by U.S. crude oil inventories last week. West Texas Intermediate crude for December delivery was up $0.31 or 0.5 percent at $60.46 per barrel.