Taiwan Stock Market May Take Further Damage On Monday

(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market on Friday wrote a finish to the five-day winning streak in which it had rallied more than 600 points or 3.7 percent. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now sits just beneath the 17,290-point plateau and the losses may accelerate on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is mixed to lower, with strength from crude oil prices offset by likely profit taking. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourses were down and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

The TSE finished modestly lower on Friday following losses from the financial shares, technology stocks and plastics companies.

For the day, the index fell 46.09 points or 0.27 percent to finish at 17,288.91 after trading between 17,250.79 and 17,342.86.

Among the actives, Cathay Financial skidded 1.01 percent, while Mega Financial retreated 1.60 percent, CTBC Financial lost 0.61 percent, First Financial slid 0.36 percent, Fubon Financial sank 0.81 percent, E Sun Financial eased 0.19 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company fell 0.34 percent, Hon Hai Precision shed 0.45 percent, Largan Precision tanked 2.23 percent, Catcher Technology plunged 2.86 percent, MediaTek tumbled 1.96 percent, Delta Electronics added 0.41 percent, Novatek Microelectronics jumped 1.78 percent, Formosa Plastics slumped 1.70 percent, Nan Ya Plastics improved 0.88 percent, Asia Cement perked 0.11 percent, Taiwan Cement advanced 0.91 percent, China Steel gained 0.34 percent and United Microelectronics Corporation was unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street ends up negative as the major averages opened higher on Friday but slumped late to finish in the red.

The Dow shed 108.98 points or 0.32 percent to finish at 34,299.12, while the NASDAQ dropped 93.23 points or 0.68 percent to close at 13,689.57 and the S&P 500 sank 16.25 points or 0.37 percent to end at 4,409.59.

For the week, the NASDAQ spiked 3.3 percent, the S&P 500 jumped2.6 percent and the Dow advanced 1.3 percent.

The late-day weakness on Wall Street reflected profit taking as traders looked to cash in after the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ hit their best closing levels in over a year, while the Dow set a new six-month closing high.

In economic news, inflation expectations edged down to 3.0 percent in June from 3.1 percent in May, again staying within the narrow 2.9-3.1 percent range. The decrease in inflation expectations may add to recent investor optimism that the Federal Reserve won't follow through on its plan to continue raising interest rates.

Crude oil prices climbed higher on Friday amid hopes about higher refinery demand and that further stimulus in China will help boost growth in the world's second largest economy. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures ended higher by $1.16 or 1.6 percent at $71.78 a barrel. WTI crude futures gained 2.3 percent in the week.