Rally May Stall For Taiwan Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market has moved higher in three straight sessions, improving more than 140 points or 0.9 percent along the way. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now rests just beneath the 15,700-point plateau although it may be stuck in neutral on Tuesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets suggests little movement ahead of key inflation data later this week. The European and U.S. markets finished mixed and mostly flat and the Asian markets are expected to open in similar fashion.

The TSE finished modestly higher on Monday following gains from the financial shares, technology stocks and cement companies.

For the day, the index picked up 73.50 points or 0.47 percent to finish at 15,699.57 after trading between 15,648.54 and 15,757.80.

Among the actives, Cathay Financial collected 0.94 percent, while Mega Financial perked 0.15 percent, CTBC Financial jumped 1.30 percent, First Financial gathered 1.11 percent, Fubon Financial added 0.51 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company improved 0.80 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation gained 0.81 percent, Largan Precision climbed 1.27 percent, Catcher Technology strengthened 1.37 percent, Delta Electronics advanced 0.83 percent, Novatek Microelectronics rose 0.23 percent, Nan Ya Plastics was up 0.26 percent, Asia Cement added 0.56 percent, Taiwan Cement increased 0.76 percent, China Steel rallied 0.69 percent and Hon Hai Precision, MediaTek, E Sun Financial and Formosa Plastics were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street offers little guidance as the major averages opened flat on Monday and spent much of the day in negative territory before finishing mixed and little changed.

The Dow shed 55.69 points or 0.17 percent to finish at 33,618.69, while the NASDAQ added 21.50 points or 0.18 percent to close at 12,256.92 and the S&P 500 perked 1.87 points or 0.05 percent to end at 4,138.12.

The choppy trading on Wall Street came as traders seemed reluctant to make significant moves ahead to the release of key inflation data later in the week.

The reports on consumer and producer price inflation, which are due to be released on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively, could have a significant impact on the outlook for interest rates.

In U.S. economic news, the Commerce Department released a report showing U.S. wholesale inventories were unexpectedly unchanged in March versus expectations for a slight increase.

Crude oil prices climbed higher on Monday amid optimism about the outlook for energy demand thanks to last week's fairly encouraging non-farm payrolls data. West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures for June ended higher by $1.82 or 2.6 percent at $73.16 a barrel.