Mild Upside Seen For Taiwan Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market on Tuesday halted the four-day losing streak in which it had stumbled more than 1,150 points or 4.3 percent. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now rests just shy of the 22,800-point plateau and it may inch higher again on Wednesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is murky on conflicting signals about the outlook for interest rates. The European and U.S. markets were mixed and little changed and the Asian bourses figure to follow that lead.

The TSE finished sharply higher on Tuesday with gains across the board, especially among the financials, technology stocks and plastics companies.

For the day, the index rallied 309.19 points or 1.37 percent to finish at the daily high of 22,797.52 after moving as low as 22,542.93.

Among the actives, Cathay Financial was up 0.17 percent, while Mega Financial collected 1.17 percent, First Financial improved 0.91 percent, E Sun Financial jumped 1.85 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company rallied 1.40 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation spiked 3.30 percent, Hon Hai Precision strengthened 1.75 percent, Largan Precision perked 0.19 percent, Catcher Technology climbed 1.02 percent, MediaTek rose 0.72 percent, Delta Electronics accelerated 2.50 percent, Novatek Microelectronics soared 4.13 percent, Formosa Plastics skyrocketed 8.04 percent, Nan Ya Plastics surged 6.10 percent, Asia Cement added 1.01 percent and CTBC Financial and Fubon Financial were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street offers little guidance as the major averages opened higher on Tuesday but quickly faded and then hugged the line before ending mixed.

The Dow advanced 221.16 points or 0.52 percent to finish at 42,518.28, while the NASDAQ slumped 43.71 points or 0.23 percent to close at 19.044.39 and the S&P 500 rose 6.69 points or 0.11 percent to end at 5,842.91.

The initial strength on Wall Street came following the release of a Labor Department report showing producer prices rose by slightly less than expected in the month of December.

The smaller than expected monthly increase by producer prices helped ease recent concerns about the outlook for inflation and interest rates, although the faster annual growth kept buying interest somewhat subdued.

Traders may also have been reluctant to make more significant moves ahead of the release of a more closely watched report on consumer price inflation later today.

Oil prices came off five-month highs on Tuesday as investors shifted their focus on the possible impact of Donald Trump's proposed tariffs on imports. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for February closed lower by $1.32 or about 1.67 percent at $77.50 a barrel.