Taiwan Stock Market May Be Stuck In Neutral On Wednesday

(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market has tracked higher in consecutive trading days, advancing almost 140 points or 1 percent along the way. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now rests just shy of the 14,225-point plateau although it may spin its wheels on Wednesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is mixed to lower thanks to rising recession fears. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourses were down and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

The TSE finished modestly higher on Tuesday following gains from the plastics, weakness from the cement companies and mixed performances from the financials and technology shares.

For the day, the index added 86.43 points or 0.61 percent to finish at 14,224.12 after trading between 14,001.97 and 14,237.94.

Among the actives, Cathay Financial eased 0.12 percent, while Mega Financial collected 0.49 percent, CTBC Financial rose 0.23 percent, Fubon Financial perked 0.18 percent, First Financial shed 0.75 percent, E Sun Financial dipped 0.21 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company climbed 1.00 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation and Largan Precision both jumped 1.72 percent, Hon Hai Precision sank 0.80 percent, Catcher Technology advanced 0.89 percent, MediaTek soared 3.04 percent, Delta Electronics fell 0.35 percent, Novatek Microelectronics skyrocketed 6.02 percent, Formosa Plastics increased 0.23 percent, Nan Ya Plastics strengthened 1.27 percent, Asia Cement dropped 0.98 percent and Taiwan Cement lost 0.45 percent.

The lead from Wall Street is soft as the major averages shook off early support on Tuesday, quickly turning lower and spending the rest of the day in the red.

The Dow shed 1088 points or 0.03 percent to finish at 33,136.37, while the NASDAQ lost 79.50 points or 0.76 percent to end at 10,386.98 and the S&P 500 fell 15.36 points or 0.40 percent to close at 3,824.14.

The early strength on Wall Street came as traders looked to get the New Year started on a positive note following a dismal 2022. For last year, the NASDAQ plummeted 33.1 percent, the S&P 500 lost 19.4 percent and the Dow sank 8.8 percent.

A report from the International Monetary Fund says about one third of the world economy will likely go into a recession this year. A rebound from treasuries also added to the negative sentiment.

A report released by the Commerce Department unexpectedly showed a modest increase in U.S. construction spending in the month of November.

Crude oil prices fell on Tuesday amid concerns about the outlook for energy demand due to rising fears of a recession. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for February ended down $3.33 or 4.2 percent at $76.93 a barrel, a two-week low.