Taiwan Bourse May Extend Friday's Gains

(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market on Friday snapped the two-day slide in which it had stumbled almost 300 points or 1.3 percent. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now rests just above the 22,900-point plateau and it may see additional support on Monday.

The global forecast is positive, supported by increasing oil prices. The European and U.S. markets were up on Friday and the Asian markets are expected to open in similar fashion on Monday.

The TSE finished sharply higher on Friday following gains from the financial shares and technology stocks, while the plastics companies were soft.

For the day, the index rallied 348.66 points or 1.55 percent to finish at 22,904.32 after trading between 22,799.53 and 23,019.04.

Among the actives, Cathay Financial collected 0.30 percent, while Mega Financial improved 0.76 percent, First Financial was up 0.18 percent, E Sun Financial gathered 0.37 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company accelerated 2.97 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation perked 0.11 percent, Hon Hai Precision rose 0.25 percent, Largan Precision added 0.63 percent, Catcher Technology sank 0.75 percent, MediaTek soared 3.56 percent, Delta Electronics rallied 3.41 percent, Novatek Microelectronics shed 0.72 percent, Formosa Plastics fell 0.34 percent, Nan Ya Plastics lost 0.50 percent, Asia Cement gained 0.46 percent and CTBC Financial and Fubon Financial were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is upbeat as the major averages opened higher on Friday and mostly stayed that way, ending in the green.

The Dow surged 426.16 points or 0.97 percent to finish at a record 44,296.51, while the NASDAQ added 31.23 points or 0.16 percent to close at 19.003.65 and the S&P 500 gained 20.63 points or 0.35 percent to end at 5,969.34.

For the week, the Dow surged 2.0 percent, while the NASDAQ and the S&P 500 both shot up by 1.7 percent.

The advance by the markets came despite a pullback by shares of Nvidia (NVDA), as the AI darling tumbled by 3.2 percent despite having reporting better than expected third quarter earnings and revenues.

In U.S. economic news, revised data released by the University of Michigan showed consumer sentiment in the U.S. improved less than expected in November - although the index is still at its highest level since April.

Oil prices climbed higher on Friday amid rising concerns about Russia/Ukraine conflict. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for January closed up $1.14 or 1.6 percent at $71.24 a barrel. WTI crude futures gained 6.5 percent in the week.

Closer to home, Taiwan will see October numbers for industrial production later today; in September, industrial output climbed 11.22 percent on year.