Taiwan Stock Market Has Another Green Light For Friday's Trade

(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market has moved higher in six straight sessions, collecting more than 1,200 points or 5.4 percent along the way. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now sits just above the 22,850-point plateau and it's called higher again on Friday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is positive on continued optimism over the outlook for interest rates. The European and U.S. markets were higher and the Asian markets are expected to follow suit, although profit taking may take hold later in the day.

The TSE finished modestly higher again on Thursday following gains from the financial shares and mixed performances from the technology and plastics companies.

For the day, the index added 97.21 points or 0.43 percent to finish at 22,858.81 after trading between 22,769.24 and 22,961.77.

Among the actives, Cathay Financial spiked 1.79 percent, while Mega Financial collected 0.38 percent, CTBC Financial perked 0.14 percent, First Financial rose 0.36 percent, Fubon Financial fell 0.32 percent, E Sun Financial improved 0.53 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company climbed 1.00 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation improved 0.73 percent, Hon Hai Precision added 0.53 percent, Largan Precision dropped 0.95 percent, Catcher Technology gained 0.64 percent, MediaTek surged 3.67 percent, Delta Electronics shed 0.50 percent, Novatek Microelectronics jumped 1.75 percent, Formosa Plastics slumped 0.99 percent, Nan Ya Plastics was up 0.23 percent and Asia Cement advanced 0.87 percent.

The lead from Wall Street is upbeat as the major averages opened higher on Thursday and maintained a positive bias throughout the session.

The Dow rallied 260.36 points or 0.62 percent to finish at 42,175.11, while the NASDAQ jumped 108.09 points or 0.60 percent to end at 18,190.29 and the S&P 500 added 23.11 points or 0.40 percent to close at 5,745.37.

The early rally on Wall Street reflected strength in the tech sector, with chipmaker Micron (MU) helping lead the way higher after reporting better than expected quarterly results and providing strong fiscal revenue guidance.

Stocks also benefited from the release of upbeat U.S. economic data after the Labor Department said first-time claims for U.S. jobless benefits unexpectedly edged lower last week. The Commerce Department also reported that new orders for U.S. manufactured durable goods were virtually unchanged in August.

Oil prices fell sharply on Thursday, weighed down by concerns about excess supply in the market after reports said OPEC will return 2.2 million barrels per day of production cuts back into the market. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for November ended down $2.02 or 2.9 percent at $67.67 a barrel.