Taiwan Bourse Likely To Cling To 23,000-Point Level

(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market headed south again on Friday, one session after ending the two-day slide in which it had fallen almost 360 points or 1.5 percent. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now rests just above the 23,020-point plateau and it's likely to remain in that neighborhood again on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets suggests little movement ahead of the FOMC meeting later this week. The European and U.S. markets mostly saw slight weakness and the Asian markets figure to follow that lead.

The TSE finished slightly lower on Friday following losses from the financial shares and plastics, while the technology companies were mixed.

For the day, the index dipped 26.32 points or 0.11 percent to finish at 23,020.48 after trading between 22,920.84 and 23,097.52.

Among the actives, Cathay Financial dipped 0.14 percent, while First Financial sank 0.72 percent, E Sun Financial lost 0.73 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company gained 0.47 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation stumbled 2.47 percent, Hon Hai Precision skidded 1.06 percent, Largan Precision added 0.40 percent, Catcher Technology tumbled 1.90 percent, MediaTek rallied 2.17 percent, Delta Electronics strengthened 1.44 percent, Novatek Microelectronics climbed 1.14 percent, Formosa Plastics tanked 2.19 percent, Nan Ya Plastics plunged 3.17 percent, Asia Cement fell 0.23 percent and Mega Financial, CTBC Financial and Fubon Financial were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street suggests mild downside as the major averages opened higher on Friday but quickly slipped under water and largely stayed that way, although the NASDAQ broke back into positive territory later in the day.

The Dow shed 86.04 points or 0.20 percent to finish at 43,828.06, while the NASDAQ rose 23.92 points or 0.12 percent to close at 19,926.72 and the S&P 500 eased 0.16 points or 0.00 percent to end at 6,051.09.

For the week, the NASDAQ rose 0.3 percent, the S&P 500 slid 0.6 percent and the narrower Dow tumbled 1.8 percent.

The early strength on Wall Street partly reflected a positive reaction to earnings news from Broadcom (AVGO), which reported better than expected fiscal fourth quarter earnings and said it expects continued strong demand for its custom AI chips.

Buying interest waned shortly after the start of trading, however, as traders looked ahead to this week's Federal Reserve meeting. The Fed is widely expected to lower interest rates by another 25 basis points, although traders are likely to pay close attention to the accompanying statement for clues about future rate cuts.

Oil futures settled higher on Friday as supply worries resurfaced following additional sanctions on Iran and Russia. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for January closed up $1.27 or about 1.8 percent at $71.29 a barrel.