Taiwan Shares May Run Out Of Steam On Tuesday

(RTTNews) - Ahead of Monday's holiday for the Mid-Autumn Festival, the Taiwan stock market had moved higher in four consecutive sessions, rallying more than 1,180 points or 4.7 percent along the way. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now sits just above the 26,760-point plateau although the rally may stall on Tuesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is mixed to lower, with support from the technology shares likely to limit the downside. 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 higher on Friday following gains from the technology stocks, weakness from the plastics and a mixed picture from the financial sector.

For the day, the index surged 382.67 points or 1.45 percent to finish at the daily high of 26,761.06 after moving as low as 26,410.03.

Among the actives, Mega Financial shed 0.59 percent, while CTBC Financial perked 0.16 percent, First Financial dipped 0.17 percent, Fubon Financial slumped 1.03 percent, E Sun Financial retreated 1.21 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company soared 2.56 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation was up 0.11 percent, Hon Hai Precision gained 0.44 percent, Largan Precision climbed 1.06 percent, Catcher Technology skidded 1.09 percent, MediaTek rallied 3.13 percent, Delta Electronics surged 5.37 percent, Novatek Microelectronics perked 0.12 percent, Formosa Plastics tanked 2.27 percent, Nan Ya Plastics fell 0.26 percent, Asia Cement added 0.40 percent and Cathay Financial was unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is soft as the major averages opened mixed on Monday and ultimately finished on opposite sides of the line and little changed,

The Dow shed 63.31 points or 0.14 percent to finish at 46,694.97, while the NASDAQ gained 161.16 points or 0.71 percent to end at a record 22,941.67 and the S&P 500 rose 24.49 points or 0.36 percent to close at 6,740.49, also a record.

The strength in the markets largely reflected a rally by semiconductor stocks, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor index surging by 2.9 percent to a record closing high.

Significant strength was also visible among gold and software stocks, while housing and commercial real estate stocks moved notably lower over the course of the session.

Meanwhile, traders continued to shrug off concerns about the economic impact of the ongoing government shutdown, which entered its sixth day amid little signs of progress toward a deal on a temporary spending bill.

Crude oil prices surged on Monday as OPEC's output increase for November turned out to be lower than expected and relieved concerns of oversupply. West Texas Intermediate crude for November delivery was up $0.73 or 1.20 percent at $61.61 per barrel.