Taiwan Stock Market Due For Profit Taking

(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market has finished higher in five straight sessions, advancing more than 840 points or 4.3 percent in that span. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now sits just above the 19,785-point plateau although investors are likely to lock in gains on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is soft, with energy and technology stocks likely to be under pressure. The European markets were mixed and little changed and the U.S. bourses were down and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

The TSE finished modestly higher on Friday following gains from the financial shares, weakness from the plastics and mixed performances for the cement and technology stocks.

For the day, the index added 91.82 points or 0.47 percent to finish at 19,785.32 after trading between 19,638.13 and 20,065.50.

Among the actives, Cathay Financial climbed 1.00 percent, while Mega Financial rallied 1.53 percent, CTBC Financial advanced 1.34 percent, First Financial collected 0.37 percent, Fubon Financial jumped 1.62 percent, E Sun Financial fell 0.39 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company soared 3.16 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation surged 3.29 percent, Hon Hai Precision plunged 2.33 percent, Largan Precision tumbled 1.96 percent, Catcher Technology and Novatek Microelectronics both skidded 1.00 percent, Delta Electronics skyrocketed 5.05 percent, Formosa Plastics retreated 1.72 percent, Nan Ya Plastics declined 1.77 percent, Asia Cement perked 0.12 percent, Taiwan Cement shed 0.47 percent, China Steel added 0.63 percent and MediaTek was unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is negative as the major averages opened higher on Friday but fell into the red shortly thereafter, closing under water.

The Dow dropped 68.71 points or 0.18 percent to finish at 38.722.69, while the NASDAQ tumbled 188.29 points or 1.16 percent to end at 16,085.11 and the S&P 500 sank 33.67 points or 0.65 percent to close at 5,123.69. For the week, the NASDAQ slumped 1.2 percent, the Dow lost 0.9 percent and the S&P eased 0.3 percent.

The early strength on Wall Street came as the Labor Department's closely watched monthly jobs report added to optimism about the outlook for interest rates. While job growth in February came in much stronger than expected, the report also showed notable downward revisions to job growth in the two previous months.

The downward revisions and the unexpected increase in the unemployment rate combined with a slowdown in the annual rate of wage growth has added to optimism the Federal Reserve will begin lowering interest rates in June.

Buying interest remained somewhat subdued, however, as traders seemed reluctant to continue buying stocks ahead of the release of key inflation data this week that could have a more profound impact on the outlook for rates.

Oil prices fell on Friday amid uncertainty about the outlook for demand, particularly from China after data showed a drop in the country's oil imports in the first two months of the year. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for April shed $0.92 or 1.2 percent at $78.01 a barrel. WTI crude futures sank 2.5 percent in the week.