Tech Shares May Lift Taiwan Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market has moved lower in back-to-back sessions, stumbling almost 425 points or 2 percent along the way. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now rests just above the 22,925-point plateau although it's due for support on Wednesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets offers little clarity, although technology shares may provide a slight boost. The European markets were down and the U.S. bourses were mixed and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

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

For the day, the index dropped 271.48 points or 1.17 percent to finish at 22,926.59 after trading between 22,711.10 and 23,056.57.

Among the actives, Cathay Financial lost 1.15 percent, while Mega Financial shed 0.38 percent, CTBC Financial eased 0.14 percent, First Financial declined 0.91 percent, Fubon Financial dipped 0.33 percent, E Sun Financial sank 0.73 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company dropped 0.95 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation stumbled 1.73 percent, Hon Hai Precision plunged 2.56 percent, Largan Precision slumped 1.29 percent, Catcher Technology perked 0.21 percent, MediaTek tanked 2.62 percent, Delta Electronics rose 0.25 percent, Novatek Microelectronics surrendered 2.14 percent, Formosa Plastics tumbled 1.75 percent, Nan Ya Plastics skidded 1.06 percent and Asia Cement fell 0.32 percent.

The lead from Wall Street is murky as the major averages opened lower on Tuesday and largely hugged the line before ending mixed.

The Dow slumped 154.52 points or 0.36 percent to finish at 42,233.05, while the NASDAQ jumped 145.56 points or 0.78 percent to close at a record 18,712.75 and the S&P 500 rose 9.40 points or 0.16 percent to end at 5,832.92.

The climb by the NASDAQ came ahead of the release of earnings news from big-name tech companies, including with Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Meta Platforms (META), Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN) and Apple (AAPL).

Semiconductor stocks showed a particularly strong move to the upside, driving the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index up by 2.3 percent.

In U.S. economic news, the Conference Board noted a substantial improvement by U.S. consumer confidence in October. Also, the Labor Department said job openings in the U.S. fell to 7.44 million in September from a downwardly revised 7.86 million in August.

Oil futures settled lower again on Tuesday amid concerns crude supplies will far exceed near term demand. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for December ended down $0.17 or about 0.25 percent at $67.21 a barrel.