Taiwan Shares Expected To Open In The Green

(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market was shuttered on Friday due to a city-wide shutdown in Taipei caused by Typhoon Bavi, which suspended all trading.

Prior to that, the market had headed south again on Thursday, one day after snapping the two-day slide in which it had dropped more than 1,300 points or 2.9 percent. The Taiwan Stock Exchange remains just above the 45,350-point plateau although it figures to track higher again on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is cautiously optimistic, spurred by strong tech support and easing crude oil prices. The European markets were mixed and the U.S. bourses were slightly higher and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

The TSE finished modestly lower on Thursday following weakness from the financial shares and technology stocks.

For the day, the index sank 379.80 points or 0.83 percent to finish at 45,354.61 after trading between 45,352.41 and 46,064.06.

The lead from Wall Street suggests mild upside as the major averages shook off a slow start on Friday and trended slightly higher for the rest of the day, ending near session highs.

The Dow added 149.60 points or 0.29 percent to finish at 52,637.01. while the NASDAQ gained 74.72 points or 0.29 percent to close at 26,281.61 and the S&P 500 rose 31.75 points or 0.42 percent to end at 7,575.39.

For the week, the tech-heavy NASDAQ surged 1.7 percent, the S&P 500 jumped 1.2 percent and the Dow advanced 0.5 percent.

The upward move on Wall Street partly reflected strength among some big-name tech stocks, including Meta Platforms (META), Nvidia (NVDA) and the U.S.-listed debut shares of SK Hynix.

However, traders largely seemed reluctant to make more significant moves ahead of the unofficial start of earnings season this week. Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C), Goldman Sachs (GS), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Wells Fargo (WFC), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), UnitedHealth (UNH) and Netflix (NFLX) are among the companies due to report their quarterly results.

Crude oil prices slumped on Friday, thanks to efforts by third-party mediators to bring the U.S. and Iran back to the negotiating table. West Texas Intermediate crude for August delivery was down $0.75 or 1.04 percent at $71.33 per barrel.