Lower Open Called For Taiwan Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market has climbed higher in consecutive trading days, jumping more than 340 points or 2.1 percent along the way. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now rests just above the 15,760-point plateau although it may be due for profit taking on Thursday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is soft on concerns over the outlook for interest rates. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourses were down and the Asian markets are tipped to follow the latter lead.

The TSE finished sharply higher on Wednesday following gains from the financials, plastics and technology stocks.

For the day, the index rallied 247.01 points or 1.59 percent to finish at the daily high of 15,760.46 after moving as low as 15,535.17.

Among the actives, Cathay Financial accelerated 1.47 percent, while Mega Financial rallied 1.55 percent, CTBC Financial collected 1.43 percent, Fubon Financial spiked 1.63 percent, First Financial increased 1.35 percent, E Sun Financial jumped 2.09 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company soared 3.09 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation strengthened 1.33 percent, Largan Precision advanced 0.88 percent, Catcher Technology added 0.53 percent, MediaTek improved 1.30 percent, Delta Electronics gained 0.68 percent, Novatek Microelectronics rose 0.35 percent, Formosa Plastics perked 0.44 percent, Nan Ya Plastics increased 0.53 percent, Asia Cement was up 0.47 percent, Taiwan Cement gathered 0.40 percent and Hon Hai Precision was unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is broadly negative as the major averages opened flat on Wednesday and stayed that way until the FOMC announcement, which caused them to plummet.

The Dow plunged 530.49 points or 1.63 percent to finish at 32.030.11, while the NASDAQ tumbled 190.15 points or 1.60 percent to close at 11,669.96 and the S&P 500 sank 65.90 points or 1.65 percent to end at 3,936.97.

The late-day sell-off on Wall Street came after the Federal Reserve announced its decision to continue raising interest rates despite recent turmoil in the banking industry.

While the interest rate hike was widely expected, some traders may have been holding out hope the Fed would leave rates unchanged.

The central bank's latest projections suggest the Fed plans to raise rates just one more time this year to a range of 5.0 to 5.25 percent.

Crude oil futures settled higher on Wednesday after data showed that crude inventories rose by 1.117 million barrels last week. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for May settled at $70.90 a barrel, gaining $1.23 or 1.8 percent.

Closer to home, the de facto central bank in Taiwan will announce its quarterly decision on interest rates; the bank is expected to keep its lending rate steady at 1.75 percent.

Taiwan also will see February data for industrial production; in January, production was down 20.5 percent on year.