Taiwan Shares May Extend Friday's Gains

(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market on Friday ended the two-day slide in which it had stumbled almost 275 points or 1.4 percent. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now sits just above the 20,330-point plateau and it may add to its winnings on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is positive on an improved outlook for interest rates. The European and U.S. bourses finished solidly higher and the Asian markets are expected to open in similar fashion.

The TSE finished modestly higher on Friday following gains from the financial shares, technology stocks and cement companies.

For the day, the index climbed 107.88 points or 0.53 percent to finish at 20,330.32 after trading between 20,272.34 and 20,521.49.

Among the actives, Cathay Financial slid 0.20 percent, while Mega Financial rose 0.25 percent, CTBC Financial advanced 1.91 percent, First Financial perked 0.18 percent, E Sun Financial collected 0.25 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company climbed 1.04 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation rallied 2.19 percent, Hon Hai Precision strengthened 1.30 percent, Largan Precision jumped 2.07 percent, Catcher Technology added 0.68 percent, MediaTek surged 4.00 percent, Delta Electronics skyrocketed 5.82 percent, Novatek Microelectronics accelerated 2.92 percent, Formosa Plastics sank 0.73 percent, Nan Ya Plastics slumped 1.05 percent, Asia Cement was up 0.34 percent, Taiwan Cement gathered 0.31 percent and China Steel and Fubon Financial were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is strong as the major averages opened sharply higher on Friday and remained in the green throughout the session.

The Dow surged 449.98 points or 1.18 percent to finish at 38,675.68, while the NASDAQ rallied 315.33 points or 1.99 percent to close at 16,156.33 and the S&P 500 advanced 63.59 points or 1.26 percent to end at 5,127.79. For the week, the S&P 500 climbed 0.6 percent, the Dow added 1.1 percent and the NASDAQ jumped 1.4 percent.

The rally on Wall Street followed the release of a closely watched Labor Department showing employment in the U.S. increased less than expected in April. The data helped generate optimism about the outlook for interest rates following the Federal Reserve's monetary policy meeting earlier in the week.

Also, a separate report released by the Institute for Supply Management showed U.S. service sector activity unexpectedly contracted in April.

Oil prices fell on Friday, pushing the most active futures contract to their biggest weekly decline in about three months on concerns about the outlook for global oil demand. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for June ended down by $0.84 or 1.06 percent at $78.11 a barrel.