Steady Start Seen For Taiwan Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market on Tuesday ended the two-day winning streak in which it had improved almost 160 points or 1.1 percent. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now rests just beneath the 15,870-point plateau and it's expected to see little movement on Wednesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is murky amid mixed economic and earnings data. The European markets were slightly higher and the U.S. bourses were mixed and little changed and the Asian markets are expected to follow the latter lead.

The TSE finished modestly lower on Tuesday following losses from the steel, cement and plastic stocks, while the financials and technology companies were mixed.

For the day, the index shed 94.11 points or 0.59 percent to finish at 15,869.44 after trading between 15,851.71 and 15,967.89.

Among the actives, Cathay Financial slipped 0.23 percent, while Mega Financial rallied 2.24 percent, CTBC Financial shed 0.44 percent, First Financial collected 0.56 percent, Fubon Financial perked 0.17 percent, E Sun Financial was up 0.20 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company dropped 0.96 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation rose 0.19 percent, Hon Hai Precision added 0.48 percent, Largan Precision tumbled 1.88 percent, Catcher Technology and Delta Electronics both sank 0.81 percent, MediaTek plunged 2.96 percent, Novatek Microelectronics retreated 1.53 percent, Formosa Plastics slumped 1.06 percent, Nan Ya Plastics gathered 0.26 percent, Asia Cement was down 0.34 percent, Taiwan Cement declined 1.32 percent and China Steel eased 0.16 percent.

The lead from Wall Street provides little guidance as the major averages opened mixed and hugged the unchanged line throughout the session, finally ending on opposite sides and barely moved.

The Dow shed 10.55 points or 0.03 percent to finish at 33,976.63, while the NASDAQ dipped 4.31 points or 0.04 percent to close at 12,153.41 and the S&P 600 rose 3.55 points or 0.09 percent to end at 4,154.87.

Traders were unhappy with remarks from St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard, who said that he favored continued interest-rate hikes to counter persistent inflation and added that recession fears are overblown.

In economic news, the Commerce Department said U.S. housing starts slid by 0.8 percent to an annual rate of 1.420 million in March from a revised rate of 1.432 million in February.

In earnings news, Bank of America, Johnson & Johnson and Netflix all beat the street, while Goldman Sachs and United Airlines missed expectations.

Oil futures settled slightly higher Tuesday as traders assessed Chinese GDP numbers and data showing a drop in eurozone and German investor sentiment. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for May rose $0.03 at $80.86 a barrel.