Taiwan Stock Market Due For Upward Correction

(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market has finished lower in three straight sessions, plunging more than 1,170 points or 5.3 percent along the way. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now rests just shy of the 21,100-point plateau although bargain hunting may the market a lift on Thursday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets suggests little movement ahead of key U.S. unemployment data on Friday. The European markets were down and the U.S. bourses were mixed and flat and the Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.

The TSE finished with huge losses on damage across the board, especially among the financials, plastics and technology companies.

For the day, the index plummeted 999.46 points or 4.52 percent to finish at 21,092.75 after trading between 20,922.17 and 21,574.65.

Among the actives, Cathay Financial declined 3.30 percent, while Mega Financial dropped 2.44 percent, CTBC Financial shed 2.73 percent, First Financial fell 0.93 percent, Fubon Financial skidded 3.42 percent, E Sun Financial lost 1.45 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company plunged 5.43 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation surrendered 3.27 percent, Hon Hai Precision stumbled 2.97 percent, Largan Precision tanked 4.57 percent, Catcher Technology retreated 4.04 percent, MediaTek plummeted 6.97 percent, Delta Electronics tumbled 5.22 percent, Novatek Microelectronics sank 2.07 percent, Formosa Plastics slumped 5.62 percent, Nan Ya Plastics crashed 6.68 percent and Asia Cement weakened 1.77 percent.

The lead from Wall Street offers little clarity as the major averages opened mixed on Wednesday, hugged the line for most of the day and finished mixed and little changed.

The Dow added 38.04 points or 0.09 percent to finish at 40,974.97, while the NASDAQ lost 52.00 points or 0.30 percent to close at 17,084.30 and the S&P 500 dipped 8.86 points or 0.16 percent to end at 5,520.07.

The lackluster performance on Wall Street reflected uncertainty about the near-term outlook for the markets following the substantial volatility seen over the past couple months.

Stocks have shown a substantial rebound or late, but are hampered by lingering concerns about the outlook for the economy.

Oil prices tumbled on Wednesday amid rising concerns about the outlook for demand following reports that OPEC is planning to restore 180,000 barrels per day of voluntary production cuts beginning next month. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for October ended down $1.14 or 1.6 percent at 69.20 a barrel, a nine-month low.

Closer to home, Taiwan will provide August figures for consumer prices later today; in July, overall inflation was up 0.09 percent on month and 0.19 percent on year, while core CPI was up 2.52 percent on year.