Taiwan Stock Market Tipped To Reverse Thursday's Losses

(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market turned lower again on Thursday, one day after snapping the two-day slide in which it had slumped more than 110 points or 0.7 percent. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now sits just beneath the 17,280-point plateau although it's expected to open in the green on Friday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is mixed to higher ahead of key employment data from the United States later today. The European markets were down and the U.S. bourses were up and the Asian markets also figure to track higher.

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

For the day, the index lost 81.98 points or 0.47 percent to finish at 17,278.74 after trading between 17,273.71 and 17,387.94.

Among the actives, Cathay Financial skidded 0.99 percent, while Mega Financial retreated 1.27 percent, CTBC Financial declined 0.92 percent, First Financial lost 0.54 percent, Fubon Financial slumped 0.94 percent, E Sun Financial eased 0.20 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company sank 0.70 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation dropped 0.92 percent, Largan Precision shed 0.43 percent, Catcher Technology tanked 2.13 percent, MediaTek added 0.43 percent, Delta Electronics rose 0.32 percent, Novatek Microelectronics fell 0.39 percent, Formosa Plastics slid 0.62 0.62 percent, Nan Ya Plastics weakened 0.87 percent, Asia Cement was down 0.24 percent, Taiwan Cement dipped 0.29 percent, China Steel slipped 0.76 percent and Hon Hai Precision was unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is positive as the major averages opened higher on Thursday and largely stayed that way throughout the session.

The Dow gained 62.95 points or 0.17 percent to finish at 36,117.38, while the NASDAQ surged 193.28 points or 1.37 percent to end at 14,339.99 and the S&P 500 added 36.25 points or 0.80 percent to close at 4,585.59.

The strength on Wall Street reflected ongoing optimism about the outlook for interest rates ahead of the release of the Labor Department's closely watched monthly jobs report later today.

The jobs report could have a significant impact on the outlook for interest rates ahead of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy meeting next week.

While the Fed is widely expected to leave interest rates unchanged, traders will be looking to the jobs data to provide further evidence the central bank could cut rates as soon as March 2024.

Oil futures settled slightly lower Thursday amid lingering uncertainty about the outlook for energy demand due to global economic slowdown. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for January ended down $0.04 at $69.34 a barrel.

Closer to home, Taiwan will provide November numbers for imports, exports and trade balance later today. In October, imports were down 12.3 percent on year and exports fell 4.5 percent for a trade surplus of $5.77 billion.