Taiwan Stock Market May See Profit Taking On Thursday

(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market has moved higher in four straight sessions, gathering more than 480 points or 2.3 percent in that span. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now sits just above the 20,700-point plateau although investors are likely to cash in on Thursday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is uninspired thanks to uncertainty over the outlook for interest rates. The European markets were slightly higher and the U.S. bourses were mixed and flat and the Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.

The TSE finished modestly higher on Wednesday following gains from the financial shares, weakness from the cement stocks and a mixed picture from the technology companies.

For the day, the index gained 46.98 points or 0.23 percent to finish at the daily high of 20,700.51 after trading as low as 20,547.48.

Among the actives, Mega Financial collected 0.37 percent, while CTBC Financial climbed 1.11 percent, First Financial improved 0.72 percent, E Sun Financial rose 0.18 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company perked 0.25 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation added 0.58 percent, Largan Precision tumbled 1.97 percent, Catcher Technology declined 1.34 percent, MediaTek soared 4.78 percent, Delta Electronics retreated 1.53 percent, Novatek Microelectronics plummeted 5.47 percent, Nan Ya Plastics lost 0.35 percent, Asia Cement sank 0.68 percent, Taiwan Cement fell 0.30 percent, China Steel shed 0.60 percent and Hon Hai Precision, Cathay Financial, Fubon Financial and Formosa Plastics were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street offers little clarity as the major averages opened lower but ultimately wound up mixed and little changed.

The Dow added 172.13 points or 0.44 percent to finish at 39,056.39, while the NASDAQ sank 29.80 points or 0.18 percent to close at 16,302.76 and the S&P 500 eased 0.03 points or 0.00 percent to end at 5,187.67.

The choppy trading on Wall Street came amid lingering uncertainty about the outlook for interest rates following Tuesday's remarks by Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari.

Kashkari suggested interest rates may need to remain at current levels for an extended period and said he couldn't rule out another rate increase.

The Federal Reserve is still widely expected to lower rates sometime in the third quarter, however, with CME Group's FedWatch Tool currently indicating an 83.5 percent chance rates will be lower by September.

Oil futures settled higher on Wednesday after data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed crude inventories rose last week. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for June ended higher by $0.61 or 0.78 percent at $78.99 per barrel.