Tech Shares May Fuel Recovery For Taiwan Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market on Wednesday ended the five-day winning streak in which it had accelerated more than 1,630 points or 6.4 percent. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now sits just above the 27,060-point plateau although it may find renewed support on Thursday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is upbeat on optimism over the outlook for interest rates, and on support from technology shares. The European and U.S. markets were mostly up and the Asian bourses figure to follow that lead.

The TSE finished modestly lower on Wednesday as weakness from the technology stocks was mitigated by support from the financials and plastics.

For the day, the index sank 148.27 points or 0.54 percent to finish at 27,063.68 after trading between 26,883.99 and 27,110.43.

Among the actives, Mega Financial rose 0.24 percent, while First Financial collected 0.86 percent, Fubon Financial climbed 1.15 percent, E Sun Financial added 0.31 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company retreated 1.39 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation rallied 1.47 percent, Hon Hai Precision stumbled 1.53 percent, Largan Precision skidded 1.19 percent, Catcher Technology gained 0.55 percent, MediaTek improved 0.75 percent, Delta Electronics lost 0.61 percent, Formosa Plastics surged 3.33 percent, Nan Ya Plastics advanced 0.84 percent, Asia Cement dipped 0.13 percent and Cathay Financial, CTBC Financial and Novatek Microelectronics were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is fairly positive as the major averages opened mixed on Wednesday but moved generally higher through the day, although the Dow slipped back under water at the close.

The Dow eased 1.20 points or 0.00 percent to finish at 46,601.78. while the NASDAQ jumped 255.01 points or 1.12 percent to close at 23,043.38 and the S&P 500 gained 39.13 points or 0.58 percent to end at 6,753.72.

The strength on Wall Street reflected a notable advance by shares of AI darling Nvidia (NVDA), which surged to a record high on reports of increased demand.

Stocks saw continued strength even after the minutes of the Federal Reserve's September revealed participants expressed a range of views about the likely future path of monetary policy.

Most judged that it likely would be appropriate to ease policy further over the remainder of this year, the Fed said, although some noted financial conditions warrant a cautious approach in the consideration of future policy changes.

Crude oil surged on Wednesday, extending gains from the past two sessions after OPEC said it would affect only a modest hike in production next month. West Texas Intermediate crude for November delivery was up $0.89 or 1.44 percent at $62.62 per barrel.

Closer to home, Taiwan will release September numbers for imports, exports and trade balance later today. In August, imports were up 29.7 percent on year and exports jumped an annual 34.1 percent for a trade surplus of $16.83 billion.