Taiwan Stock Market May Take Further Damage Monday

The Taiwan stock market ended Friday’s five-day winning streak in which it had gained more than 600 points, or 3.7 percent. The Taiwan Stock Exchange is now just below the 17,290 plateau, and losses could deepen on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is fluctuating to lower, with the strength of the crude oil price offset by likely profit taking. The European markets rose and the US stock markets fell and the Asian stock markets shared the difference.

The TSE ended slightly lower on Friday following losses on financial stocks, technology stocks and plastics companies.

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

Among the active, Cathay Financial lost 1.01 percent, Mega Financial lost 1.60 percent, CTBC Financial lost 0.61 percent, First Financial fell 0.36 percent, Fubon Financial fell 0.81 percent, E Sun Financial eased 0.19 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company fell 0.34 percent, Hon Hai Precision lost 0.45 percent, Largan Precision lost 2.23 percent, Catcher Technology plummeted 2.86 percent, MediaTek tumbled 1.96 percent, Delta Electronics added 0.41 percent, Novatek Microelectronics jumped 1.78 percent, Formosa Plastics fell 1.70 percent, Nan Ya Plastics improved 0.88 percent, Asia Cement gained 0.11 percent, Taiwan Cement rose 0.91 percent, China Steel gained 0.34 percent and United Microelectronics Corporation remained unchanged.

Wall Street’s lead turns negative as the major averages opened higher on Friday but slumped late to end in the red.

The Dow lost 108.98 points or 0.32 percent to finish at 34,299.12, while the NASDAQ lost 93.23 points or 0.68 percent to close at 13,689.57 and the S&P 500 fell 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 jumped 2.6 percent and the Dow was up 1.3 percent.

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

In economic news, inflation expectations fell slightly from 3.1 percent in May to 3.0 percent in June, again staying within the tight range of 2.9-3.1 percent. The fall in inflation expectations may add to recent investor optimism that the Federal Reserve will fail to implement its plan to raise interest rates further.

Crude oil prices rose Friday on hopes of increased refinery demand and further stimulus in China to 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 oil futures gained 2.3 percent this week.

For comments and feedback, please contact: [email protected]