Rebound Anticipated For Taiwan Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market has finished lower in two of three trading days since the end of the three-day winning streak in which it had climbed more than 3,650 points or 9.1 percent. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now sits just above the 43,630-point plateau and it's likely to open in the green on Friday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is cautiously optimistic on hopes for an end to the U.S.-Iran war. The European markets were down and the U.S. bourses were up and the Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.

The TSE finished sharply lower on Thursday following losses from the plastic, technology and cement sectors, while the financial shares were mixed.

For the day, the index retreated 620.36 points or 1.40 percent to finish at 43,636.44 after trading between 43,236.36 and 44,954.09.

Among the actives, Cathay Financial sank 0.70 percent, while Mega Financial collected 0.89 percent, CTBC Financial perked 0.17 percent, First Financial retreated 1.27 percent, E Sun Financial declined 1.44 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company fell 0.22 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation skidded 1.05 percent, Hon Hai Precision shed 0.38 percent, Largan Precision tumbled 2.28 percent, Catcher Technology plummeted 8.63 percent, MediaTek crashed 4.96 percent, Delta Electronics plunged 5.16 percent, Novatek Microelectronics contracted 1.34 percent, Formosa Plastics dropped 0.88 percent, Nan Ya Plastics cratered 5.24 percent, Asia Cement stumbled 1.82 percent and Fubon Financial was unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is upbeat as the major averages opened lower on Thursday but quickly moved to the upside to finish with varying degrees of gains to close at fresh record highs.

The Dow added 24.69 points or 0.05 percent to finish at 50,668.97, while the NASDAQ jumped 242.74 points or 0.91 percent to end at 26,917.47 and the S&P 500 gained 43.27 points or 0.58 percent to close at 7,563.63.

The turnaround on Wall Street came after a report from Axios said U.S. and Iranian negotiators have reached an agreement on a 60-day memorandum of understanding.

Crude oil prices handed back most of their early gains on Thursday after reports of the understanding between the U.S. and Iran. After surging as much as $3.84 or 4.3 percent to a high of $92.52 a barrel, crude for July delivery ended up $0.32 or 0.4 percent at $89 a barrel.

In U.S. economic news, the Commerce Department said consumer prices in the U.S. increased slightly less than expected in April.

Closer to home, Taiwan will see Q1 figures for gross domestic product later today; in the previous three months, GDP expanded 13.69 percent.