Lower Open Predicted For Taiwan Stock Market

The Taiwan stock market has finished lower in four straight sessions, stumbling almost 280 points or 2.7 percent along the way. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now sits just beneath the 17,140-point plateau and it’s poised to open under pressure again on Tuesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is flat to lower, ahead of key data and an OPEC meeting later this week. The European and U.S. markets were down and the Asian bourses figure to follow suit.

The TSE finished modestly lower on Monday following losses from the financial and plastic sectors, while the cement companies were up and the technology shares were mixed.

For the day, the index dropped 150.00 points or 0.87 percent to finish at 17,137.42 after trading between 17,133.76 and 17,351.93.

Among the actives, Cathay Financial skidded 1.19 percent, while CTBC Financial eased 0.19 percent, First Financial lost 0.72 percent, Fubon Financial and Delta Electronics both shed 0.63 percent, E Sun Financial fell 0.59 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company retreated 1.22 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation declined 1.59 percent, Largan Precision climbed 1.10 percent, Catcher Technology sank 0.76 percent, MediaTek stumbled 1.48 percent, Novatek Microelectronics gained 0.60 percent, Formosa Plastics dipped 0.25 percent, Nan Ya Plastics dropped 0.73 percent, Asia Cement rose 0.48 percent, Taiwan Cement added 0.59 percent, China Steel advanced 0.97 percent and Hon Hai Precision and Mega Financial were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is soft as the major averages opened lower on Monday, improved midday but then stumbled into the close.

The Dow dropped 56.68 points or 0.16 percent to finish at 35,333.47, while the NASDAQ eased 9.83 points or 0.07 percent to close at 14,241.02 and the S&P 500 fell 8.91 points or 0.20 percent to end at 4,550.43.

The choppy trading on Wall Street came as traders seemed reluctant to make significant moves ahead of the release of some key economic data in the coming days.

Traders also were looking for additional clues about the outlook for interest rates, with optimism the Fed is done raising rates contributing to recent strength on Wall Street.

In economic news, the Commerce Department said new home sales in U.S. pulled back sharply in October after surging in September.

Crude Oil prices fell on Monday with traders speculating on the likely outcome of Thursday’s OPEC meeting to discuss production cuts. West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures for January fell $0.68 or 0.9 percent at $74.86 a barrel.

Closer to home, Taiwan will provide Q3 data for gross domestic product later today, with forecasts suggesting an increase of 2.32 percent on year – accelerating from 1.36 percent in the three months prior.