Taiwan Bourse Expected To Return To The Upside From Holiday

Ahead of the long break for the Lunar New Year, the Taiwan stock market had moved higher in three straight sessions, gathering more than 200 points or 1.2 percent in that span. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now sits just beneath the 18,100-point plateau and it may add to its winnings on Thursday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is broadly positive, with selling in the previous session deemed to be seriously overdone. The European and U.S. markets were up and the Asian markets figure to open in similar fashion.

The TSE finished slightly higher on Feb. 5 following a mixed performance from the technology stocks and weakness from the financial shares.

For the day, the index rose 36.14 points or 0.20 percent to finish at 18,096.07 after trading between 17,992.17 and 18,115.80.

Among the actives, Cathay Financial lost 0.45 percent, while Mega Financial sank 0.79 percent, CTBC Financial slumped 0.53 percent, First Financial declined 0.74 percent, Fubon Financial and Taiwan Cement both dipped 0.31 percent, E Sun Financial stumbled 1.41 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company jumped 1.73 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation dropped 0.93 percent, Hon Hai Precision shed 0.49 percent, Largan Precision fell 0.42 percent, Catcher Technology skidded 1.02 percent, MediaTek perked 0.11 percent, Delta Electronics added 0.52 percent, Novatek Microelectronics tumbled 1.75 percent, Formosa Plastics and Asia Cement both retreated 1.50 percent, Nan Ya Plastics tanked 2.24 percent and China Steel was down 1.19 percent.

The lead from Wall Street is upbeat as the major averages opened higher on Wednesday and largely remained that way, ending near session highs.

The Dow jumped 151.52 points or 0.40 percent to finish at 38,424.27, while the NASDAQ rallied 203.55 points or 1.30 percent to end at 15,859.15 and the S&P 500 advanced 47.45 points or 0.96 percent to close at 5,000.62.

The rebound on Wall Street reflected bargain hunting, with traders seeing Tuesday’s sharp pullback as a buying opportunity amid ongoing optimism about the outlook for the markets.

While Tuesday’s hotter-than-expected inflation data further pushed back interest rate cut hopes, signs of continued strength in the economy are still expected to benefit the markets long term.

The Federal Reserve is also still likely to begin lower interest rates sometime in the coming months, even if traders have to wait until June.

Oil futures settled lower on Wednesday, snapping a seven-day winning streak after data showed a big increase in crude inventories in the U.S. last week. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for March ended down $1.23 or about 1.6 percent at $76.64 a barrel.