Lower Open Expected For Taiwan Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market on Wednesday ended the four-day winning streak in which it had advanced more than 260 points or 1.8 percent. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now rests just above the 15,550-point plateau and it's looking at another soft start again on Thursday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is soft on sliding oil prices and renewed uncertainty over the outlook for interest rates. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourses were down and the Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.

The TSE finished modestly lower on Wednesday following losses from the cement and plastic stocks, while the financials and technology shares were mixed.

For the day, the index dropped 83.07 points or 0.53 percent to finish at 15,553.41 after trading between 15,530.79 and 15,629.51.

Among the actives, Cathay Financial fell 0.24 percent, while Mega Financial gathered 0.15 percent, CTBC Financial collected 0.22 percent, First Financial dropped 0.92 percent, Fubon Financial was down 0.34 percent, E Sun Financial lost 0.40 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Taiwan Cement both skidded 1.00 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation rose 0.20 percent, Hon Hai Precision shed 0.47 percent, Largan Precision added 0.50 percent, Catcher Technology slid 0.27 percent, MediaTek strengthened 1.34 percent, Delta Electronics perked 0.17 percent, Novatek Microelectronics was up 0.24 percent, Formosa Plastics declined 0.32 percent, Nan Ya Plastics sank 0.52 percent, Asia Cement retreated 0.23 percent and China Steel slumped 0.51 percent.

The lead from Wall Street is negative as the major averages spent much of the day hugging the unchanged line before sinking late in afternoon.

The Dow tumbled 270.29 points or 0.80 percent to finish at 33,414.24, while the NASDAQ lost 55.18 points or 0.46 percent to end at 12,025.33 and the S&P 500 sank 28.83 points or 0.70 percent to close at 4,090.75.

The lower close on Wall Street came after the Federal Reserve announced its widely expected decision to raise interest rates by another quarter-point but appeared to signal a potential pause in rate hikes.

However, Fed Chair Jerome Powell's comments during his post-meeting press conference led to renewed uncertainty about the outlook for rates.

Powell said the central bank would take a "data-dependent approach" to future monetary policy decisions and stressed a decision on a pause was not made at the meeting.

Crude oil prices fell sharply on Wednesday amid concerns about economic growth and the outlook for energy demand, as well as data showing an increase in gasoline inventories. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for June ended down $3.06 or 4.3 percent at $68.60 a barrel, the lowest settlement since March 24.