Taiwan Bourse May Test Resistance At 17,000 Points

(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market on Friday ended the two-day winning streak in which it had advanced almost 55 points or 0.3 percent. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now sits just above the 16,915-point plateau and it's expected to open higher again on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is positive thanks to better than expected inflation data. The European and U.S. markets finished higher and the Asian bourses are expected to open in similar fashion.

The TSE finished slightly lower on Friday following losses from the financial shares and plastic stocks, while the technology companies were mixed.

For the day, the index slipped 26.76 points or 0.16 percent to finish at 16,915.54 after trading between 16,792.34 and 16,919.95.

Among the actives, Cathay Financial shed 0.58 percent, while Mega Financial dropped 0.91 percent, CTBC Financial dipped 0.20 percent, First Financial eased 0.18 percent, Fubon Financial sank 0.82 percent, E Sun Financial collected 0.39 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company added 0.52 percent, Catcher Technology tumbled 2.23 percent, MediaTek skidded 1.15 percent, Delta Electronics strengthened 1.42 percent, Novatek Microelectronics plummeted 6.47 percent, Formosa Plastics declined 0.58 percent, Nan Ya Plastics fell 0.41 percent, Asia Cement lost 0.56 percent, China Steel slumped 0.84 percent and United Microelectronics Corporation, Hon Hai Precision, Largan Precision and Taiwan Cement were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is upbeat as the major averages opened higher on Friday and remained in the green throughout the day, closing near session highs.

The Dow jumped 285.20 points or 0.84 percent to finish at 34,407.60, while the NASDAQ rallied 196.62 points or 1.45 percent to end at 13,787.92 and the S&P 500 climbed 53.94 points or 1.23 percent to close at 4,450.38.

For the week, the S&P 500 spiked 2.4 percent, the NASDAQ shot up 2.2 percent and the Dow leapt 2.0 percent. The NASDAQ and the S&P 500 also posted substantial gains for the first half of 2023.

The rally on Wall Street followed the release of a Commerce Department report showing an unexpected slowdown in the annual rate of consumer price growth in May.

While economists generally still expect the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates by another quarter point this month, the data added to optimism the central bank will not follow through with additional rate hikes.

Crude oil prices climbed higher Friday, extending recent gains, as a drop in U.S. crude inventories continued to support the commodity. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for August ended higher by $0.78 or 1.1 percent at $70.64 a barrel. However, WTI Crude futures shed about 12 percent in H1 and more than 6 percent in Q2.