Mild Upside Seen For Taiwan Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market has finished higher in two of three trading days since the end of the four-day slide in which it had plummeted more than 1,700 points or 7.6 percent. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now sits just above the 22,160-point plateau and it may inch higher again on Tuesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is a holding pattern ahead of Wednesday's FOMC rate decision and announcement. The European and U.S. markets ended mixed and flat and the Asian bourses are likely to follow suit.

The TSE finished slightly higher on Monday following gains from the financial shares and a mixed picture from the technology stocks.

For the day, the index rose 45.28 points or 0.20 percent after trading between 22,128.14 and 22,471.40.

Among the actives, Cathay Financial jumped 1.96 percent, while Mega Financial strengthened 1.41 percent, CTBC Financial climbed 1.12 percent, First Financial collected 0.68 percent, Fubon Financial soared 2.71 percent, E Sun Financial slumped 1.11 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company rallied 2.16 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation dropped 0.99 percent, Hon Hai Precision added 0.52 percent, Largan Precision perked 0.18 percent, Catcher Technology advanced 0.96 percent, MediaTek fell 0.40 percent, Delta Electronics spiked 2.06 percent, Novatek Microelectronics plunged 2.57 percent, Nan Ya Plastics was up 0.20 percent, Asia Cement improved 1.34 percent and Formosa Plastics was unchanged.

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

The Dow shed 49.41 points or 0.12 percent to finish at 40,539.93, while the NASDAQ added 12.32 points or 0.07 percent to close at 17,370.20 and the S&P 500 rose 4.44 points or 0.08 percent to end at 5,463.54.

The choppy trading on Wall Street came as traders seemed reluctant to make significant moves ahead of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy meeting this week.

While the Fed is widely expected to leave interest rates unchanged, traders will be looking to the accompanying statement for additional clues about a possible rate cut in September.

Investors are also waiting for corporate earnings this week from companies that include Microsoft (MSFT), Meta Platforms (META), Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN).

Crude oil prices fell to a seven-week low on Monday amid concerns about the outlook for demand from China, and ahead of Thursday's OPEC meeting. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for September ended down $1.35 or 1.8 percent at $75.81 a barrel.