Taiwan Shares Tipped To Open To The Upside On Monday

(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market on Friday halted the three-day winning streak in which it had jumped almost 680 points or 3.2 percent. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now sits just above the 21,660-point plateau although it's likely to find renewed support on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is positive, thanks to upbeat employment data out of the United States. The European markets were mixed and the U.S. bourses were sharply higher and the Asian bourses figure to follow the latter lead.

The TSE finished barely lower on Friday following mixed performances from the financial shares and technology stocks.

For the day, the index dipped 13.77 points or 0.06 percent to finish at 21,660.66 after trading between 21,606.70 and 21,702.46.

Among the actives, Mega Financial strengthened 1.26 percent, while CTBC Financial dipped 0.16 percent, First Financial climbed 1.10 percent, Fubon Financial collected 0.80 percent, E Sun Financial improved 1.31 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company fell 0.30 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation shed 0.66 percent, Hon Hai Precision retreated 1.61 percent, Largan Precision dipped 0.22 percent, Catcher Technology rose 0.24 percent, MediaTek spiked 2.81 percent, Delta Electronics lost 0.50 percent, Novatek Microelectronics added 0.50 percent, Formosa Plastics rallied 2.92 percent, Nan Ya Plastics jumped 1.74 percent, Asia Cement increased 1.08 percent and Cathay Financial was unchanged.

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

The Dow surged 443.13 points or 1.05 percent to finish at 42,762.87, while the NASDAQ rallied 231.50 points or 1.20 percent to close at 19,529.95 and the S&P 500 gained 61.06 points or 1.03 percent to end at 6,000.36.

The rally on Wall Street followed the release of the closely watched Labor Department report showing slightly stronger than expected U.S. job growth in May.

The Labor Department said non-farm payroll employment shot up by 139,000 jobs in May after jumping by a downwardly revised 147,000 jobs in April. Economists had expected employment to increase by about 130,000 jobs.

The modestly bigger than expected increase in employment helped offset concerns about the strength of the economy following some recent downbeat data.

Crude oil prices move higher on Friday in response to the better-than-expected jobs data. West Texas Intermediate crude for July delivery was up $1.21 to $64.58 per barrel; it was up 6 percent for the week.

Closer to home, Taiwan will provide May data for imports, exports and trade balance later today. In April, imports surged 33.00 percent on year and exports spiked an annual 29.9 percent for a trade surplus of $7.21 billion.