Taiwan Stock Market Due For Consolidation On Tuesday

The Taiwan stock market has moved higher in four straight sessions, accelerating almost 650 points or 4.3 percent along the way. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now sits just beneath the 16,650-point plateau although it’s likely to see some profit taking on Tuesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is mixed and fairly flat, with many of the regional bourses due for profit taking after big recent gains. The European markets were slightly lower and the U.S. bourses were slightly higher and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

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

For the day, the index rallied 141.71 points or 0.86 percent to finish at 16,649.36 after trading between 16,572.56 and 16,720.56.

Among the actives, Mega Financial increased 0.78 percent, while CTBC Financial slid 0.20 percent, First Financial collected 0.75 percent, Fubon Financial gathered 0.33 percent, E Sun Financial advanced 0.82 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company perked 0.18 percent, Hon Hai Precision added 0.63 percent, Largan Precision jumped 1.67 percent, Catcher Technology rose 0.27 percent, MediaTek improved 1.38 percent, Delta Electronics strengthened 1.32 percent, Novatek Microelectronics soared 3.77 percent, Formosa Plastics gained 0.90 percent, Nan Ya Plastics climbed 0.90 percent, Asia Cement was up 0.37 percent, Taiwan Cement lost 0.30 percent, China Steel spiked 1.83 percent and United Microelectronics Corporation and Cathay Financial were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street suggests very mild upside as the major averages opened higher on Monday, slipped into the red late but managed to finish just above the unchanged line by the close.

The Dow rose 34.54 points or 0.10 percent to finish at 34,095.86, while the NASDAQ gained 40.50 points or 0.30 percent to close at 13,518.78 and the S&P 500 roe 7.64 points or 0.18 percent to end at 4,365.98.

The early strength on Wall Street came as traders continued to express optimism about the outlook for interest rates. The Federal Reserve’s monetary policy announcement last Wednesday combined with softer than expected jobs data last Friday has led to optimism that the central bank is done raising interest rates.

Treasuries showed a significant pullback during trading on Monday after moving sharply higher over the past few sessions. Bond prices came under pressure early in the session and saw further downside as the day progressed. As a result, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, jumped 10.4 basis points to 4.662 percent.

A late round of profit taking following recent gains sent markets briefly into the red before a mild recovery.

Oil futures settled higher on Monday after Russia and Saudi Arabia confirmed that they will extend their voluntary production and supply cuts to the end of the year. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for December ended higher by $0.31 or 0.4 percent at $80.82 a barrel.

Closer to home, Taiwan will provide October figures for imports, exports and consumer prices later today. In September, imports were down 12.2 percent on year and exports rose an annual 3.4 percent for a trade surplus of$10.32 billion. Overall inflation was up 2.93 percent on year.

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