Rally May Stall For Taiwan Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market has climbed higher in consecutive trading days, advancing more than 850 points or 2.9 percent along the way. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now sits just beneath the 27,650-point plateau although it may run out of steam on Friday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is soft on concerns over bad loans in the auto industry. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourses were down and the Asian markets are expected to follow the latter lead.

The TSE finished sharply higher on Thursday following gains from the technology stocks and plastics companies, while the financial shares came in mixed.

For the day, the index jumped 372.16 points or 1.36 percent to finish at 27,647.87 after trading between 27,337.32 and 27,732.78.

Among the actives, Mega Financial fell 0.36 percent, while First Financial collected 0.34 percent, Fubon Financial rose 0.22 percent, E Sun Financial tumbled 1.67 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company rallied 1.37 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation advanced 0.90 percent, Hon Hai Precision skyrocketed 7.99 percent, Largan Precision climbed 1.13 percent, Catcher Technology added 0.28 percent, MediaTek improved 1.14 percent, Delta Electronics gained 0.99 percent, Novatek Microelectronics increased 0.98 percent, Formosa Plastics expanded 1.22 percent, Nan Ya Plastics spiked 2.35 percent, Asia Cement sank 0.68 percent and Cathay Financial and CTBC Financial were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is weak as the major averages opened higher on Thursday but dropped into the red midday and stayed there for the balance of the session.

The Dow stumbled 301.07 points or 0.65 percent to finish at 45,952.24, while the NASDAQ clumped 107.54 points or 0.47 percent to close at 22.562.54 and the S&P 500 sank 41.99 points or 0.63 percent to end at 6,629.07.

The weakness that materialized on Wall Street was attributed to the emergence of concerns about bad loans following the recent bankruptcies of two auto industry-related companies First Brands and Tricolor Holdings.

Earlier in the day, the tech sector rose on upbeat earnings news from Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM), which produces chips for Nvidia (NVDA). TSM reported a bigger than expected surge in Q3 profits amid strong AI chip demand and raised its forecast for revenue growth.

On the U.S. economic front, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia noted a substantial pullback by its reading on regional manufacturing activity in the month of October.

Crude oil prices tumbled on Thursday after the Energy Information said that crude oil inventories in the U.S. increased much more than expected, sparking demand concerns. West Texas Intermediate crude Oil for November delivery was down $0.97 or 1.66 percent at $57.30 per barrel.