Additional Support Predicted For Taiwan Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market on Tuesday wrote a finish to the four-day losing streak in which it had stumbled almost 280 points or 2.7 percent. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now sits just above the 17,340-point plateau and it may add to its winnings on Wednesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is cautiously optimistic over the outlook for interest rates. The European markets were mixed and little changed and the U.S. bourses were slightly higher and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

The TSE finished sharply higher on Tuesday following gains from the financial shares, technology stocks, plastics and cement companies.

For the day, the index jumped 203.83 points or 1.19 percent to finish at 17,341.25 after trading between 17,145.20 and 17,360.38.

Among the actives, Cathay Financial and First Financial both added 0.55 percent, while Mega Financial rose 0.38 percent, CTBC Financial jumped 1.69 percent, Fubon Financial collected 0.63 percent, E Sun Financial jumped 1.38 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company rallied 1.23 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation dropped 0.91 percent, Hon Hai Precision advanced 0.99 percent, Largan Precision improved 0.87 percent, Catcher Technology sank 0.77 percent, MediaTek strengthened 1.18 percent, Delta Electronics increased 1.27 percent, Novatek Microelectronics fell 0.20 percent, Formosa Plastics was up 0.74 percent, Nan Ya Plastics soared 1.33 percent, Asia Cement gathered 0.72 percent, Taiwan Cement spiked 1.62 percent and China Steel slid 0.19 percent.

The lead from Wall Street suggests mild upside as the major averages opened lower on Tuesday and spent much of the day bouncing back and forth across the line before ending modestly higher.

The Dow gained 83.51 points or 0.24 percent to finish at 35,416.98, while the NASDAQ added 40.73 points or 0.29 percent to close at 14,281.76 and the S&P 500 rose 4.46 points or 0.10 percent to end at 4,554.89.

The choppy performance on Wall Street was the result of conflicting commentary regarding interest rates from Federal Reserve governors Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman.

Speaking at an American Enterprise Institute event, Waller said he is "increasingly confident that policy is currently well positioned to slow the economy and get inflation back to 2 percent."

But then Bowman said during a Utah Bankers Association and Salt Lake Chamber breakfast that she continues to expect the Fed we will need to increase rates further to keep policy sufficiently restrictive to bring inflation down to 2 percent.

Crude oil prices rose sharply Tuesday on hopes that OPEC will extend output cuts at Thursday's ministerial meeting. A weak dollar contributed as well to the jump in oil prices. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for January ended up $1.55 or 2.1 percent at $76.41 a barrel.