Taiwan Stock Market May Head South Again On Friday

(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market rebounded again on Thursday, one day after ending the two-day winning streak in which it had climbed almost 170 points or 1 percent. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now rests just above the 17,240-point plateau although it's expected to see renewed selling pressure again on Friday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is mixed to lower on profit taking and reduced optimism over the outlook for interest rates. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourses were down and the Asian markets are expected to trend in the latter direction.

The TSE finished modestly higher on Thursday as the financial shares and technology stocks were mostly higher.

For the day, the index advanced 79.27 points or 0.46 percent to finish at 17,241.82 after trading between 17,189.30 and 17,282.86.

Among the actives, Cathay Financial strengthened 1.43 percent, while Mega Financial improved 1.13 percent, CTBC Financial rose 0.38 percent, Fubon Financial collected 1.55 percent, E Sun Financial plunged 2.84 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company added 0.53 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation rallied 2.33 percent, Hon Hai Precision dropped 0.90 percent, Largan Precision climbed 1.17 percent, Catcher Technology advanced 0.85 percent, MediaTek gained 0.46 percent, Delta Electronics shed 0.55 percent, Novatek Microelectronics spiked 2.09 percent, Formosa Plastics was up 0.36 percent, Asia Cement dipped 0.25 percent, Taiwan Cement perked 0.27 percent, China Steel fell 0.35 percent and First Financial and Nan Ya Plastics were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street ends up negative as the major averages opened higher on Thursday but faded late and ended modestly in the red.

The Dow dropped 237.40 points or 0.67 percent to finish at 35,282.72, while the NASDAQ slumped 77.17 points or 0.55 percent to close at 14,050.11 and the S&P 500 fell 29.34 points or 0.64 percent to end at 4,537.41.

The early strength on Wall Street partly reflected a positive reaction to upbeat earnings news from the likes of Facebook parent Meta Platforms (META) and fast food giant McDonald's (MCD).

Stocks also initially benefitted from the release of a batch of upbeat U.S. economic data, including a Commerce Department showing an unexpected acceleration in the pace of economic growth in the second quarter.

However, the upbeat data subsequently raised some concerns about the outlook for interest rates following Wednesday's monetary policy decision by the Federal Reserve.

Oil prices climbed higher on Thursday thanks to prospects of tighter supply in the market due to production cuts by OPEC and allies. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for September jumped $1.31 or 1.7 percent at $80.09 a barrel.

Closer to home, Taiwan will release preliminary Q2 results for gross domestic product later today; in the previous three months, GDP was down 2.87 percent on year.