Taiwan Bourse May Test Support At 17,000 Points

(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market headed south again on Friday, one day after halting the two-day slide in which it had stumbled almost 220 points or 1.3 percent. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now rests just above the 17,030-point plateau and it's expected to inch lower again on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is mixed and flat ahead of this week's rate decision from the FOMC. The European and U.S. markets were mixed and little changed and the Asian bourses figure to follow that lead.

The TSE finished modestly lower on Friday following losses from the financial shares, technology stocks and cement companies.

For the day, the index tumbled 134.20 points or 0.78 percent to finish at 17,030.70 after trading between 16,859.13 and 17,106.29.

Among the actives, Cathay Financial sank 0.78 percent, while CTBC Financial advanced 0.95 percent, First Financial slid 0.35 percent, Fubon Financial dropped 0.79 percent, E Sun Financial lost 0.56 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company plunged 3.28 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation tumbled 1.95 percent, Hon Hai Precision shed 0.46 percent, Largan Precision declined 1.79 percent, Catcher Technology stumbled 1.69 percent, MediaTek retreated 1.45 percent, Delta Electronics advanced 0.84 percent, Novatek Microelectronics fell 0.37 percent, Formosa Plastics skidded 0.72 percent, Nan Ya Plastics rose 0.43 percent, Asia Cement plummeted 3.33 percent, Taiwan Cement slumped 1.23 percent, China Steel was down 0.68 percent and Mega Financial was unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street offers little guidance as the major averages opened higher on Friday but faded as the day progressed, ending mixed and little changed.

The Dow added 2.49 points or 0.01 percent to finish at 35,227.69, while the NASDAQ lost 30.49 points or 0.22 percent to close at 14,032.81 and the S&P 500 rose 1.47 points or 0.03 percent to end at 4,536.34.

With the uptick, the Dow closed higher for the 10th straight session and surged 2.1 percent for the week. The S&P 500 also climbed 0.7 percent for the week, while the NASDAQ fell 0.6 percent.

The choppy trading on Wall Street came as traders seemed reluctant to make significant moves ahead of the Federal Reserve's highly anticipated monetary policy meeting this week.

With the Fed widely expected to raise interest rates by another 25 basis point, traders are likely to pay close attention to the accompanying statement for clues about the outlook for rates.

Oil futures settled higher on Friday, lifted by data showing a drop in U.S. crude inventories and recent announcements by Saudi Arabia and Russia about crude output reductions. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for September rose $1.42 or 1.9 percent at 77.07 a barrel. WTI Crude futures gained 2.3 percent in the week.

Closer to home, Taiwan will see June data for industrial production and unemployment later today. In May, output tumbled 15.73 percent on year, while the jobless rate was 3.5 percent.