Taiwan Shares May Run Out Of Steam On Monday

(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market has finished higher in three straight sessions, rallying more than 700 points or 3.3 percent along the way. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now sits just above the 22,500-point plateau although the rally may stall on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is soft amid mixed cues for interest rates. The European markets were sharply lower and the U.S. bourses were mixed and little changed and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

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

For the day, the index jumped 192.68 points or 0.86 percent to finish at the daily high of 22,504.72 after moving as low as 22,252.02.

Among the actives, Cathay Financial and E Sun Financial both rose 0.17 percent, while Mega Financial perked 0.25 percent, CTBC Financial and First Financial both collected 0.54 percent, Fubon Financial increased 0.92 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company added 0.33 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation dipped 0.18 percent, Hon Hai Precision spiked 3.12 percent, Largan Precision skyrocketed 5.88 percent, Catcher Technology climbed 1.10 percent, MediaTek improved 0.72 percent, Novatek Microelectronics advanced 0.99 percent, Formosa Plastics gained 0.66 percent, Nan Ya Plastics rallied 1.20 percent, Asia Cement gathered 0.36 percent, Taiwan Cement jumped 1.64 percent, China Steel lost 0.21 percent and Delta Electronics was unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is murky as the major averages opened sharply lower on Friday but rallied to finish mixed and flat.

The Dow dropped 57.94 points or 0.15 percent to finish at 38,589.16, while the NASDAQ rose 21.32 points or 0.12 percent to close at a record 17,688.88 and the S&P 500 dipped 2.14 points or 0.04 percent to end at 5,431.60.

For the week, the NASDAQ surged 3.2 percent, the S&P 500 jumped 1.6 percent and the Dow fell 0.5 percent.

Traders looked to cash in on recent strength in the markets early in the session, but selling pressure became subdued after the Labor Department noted unexpected decreases by U.S. import and export prices in May.

While Federal Reserve officials forecast just one rate cut this year following this week's monetary policy meeting, traders are hopeful the predictions will turn out to be overly conservative if inflation continues to slow in the coming months.

Oil futures snapped a four-day winning streak and settled lower on Friday after data showed a jump in U.S. crude inventories, while a stronger greenback weighed as well. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for July fell $0.17 or about 0.22 percent at $78.45 a barrel. WTI crude futures gained nearly 4 percent in the week.