Taiwan Shares May See Continued Consolidation On Friday

(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market on Thursday wrote a finish to the five-day winning streak in which it had surged more than 1,550 points or 4.9 percent. The Taiwan Stock Exchange sits just above the 32,530-point plateau and it may extend its losses on Friday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is murky amidst profit taking and contrasting earnings news. The European and U.S. markets were mixed with a touch of weakness, and the Asian markets figure to follow suit.

The TSE finished modestly lower on Thursday following losses from the technology and plastics companies, while the financial sector was mixed.

For the day, the index sank 267.55 points or 0.82 percent to finish at 32,536.27 after trading between 32,472.45 and 32,996.03.

Among the actives, Mega Financial dipped 0.13 percent, while CTBC Financial eased 0.16 percent, First Financial collected 0.34 percent, Fubon Financial fell 0.22 percent, E Sun Financial added 0.60 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company sank 0.82 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation plummeted 9.88 percent, Hon Hai Precision shed 0.67 percent, Largan Precision lost 0.61 percent, Catcher Technology slumped 0.49 percent, Delta Electronics tumbled 1.95 percent, Novatek Microelectronics tanked 2.16 percent, Formosa Plastics plunged 3.90 percent, Nan Ya Plastics cratered 4.22 percent, Asia Cement was down 0.28 percent and Cathay Financial and MediaTek were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is soft as the major averages opened lower on Thursday and then mostly hugged the line before ending mixed.

The Dow rose 55.96 points or 0.11 percent to finish at 49,071.56, while the NASDAQ slumped 172.33 points or 0.72 percent to end at 23,685.12 and the S&P 500 dipped 9.02 points or 0.13 percent to close at 6,969.01.

The early sell-off on Wall Street came amid a steep drop by shares of Microsoft (MSFT) after the company reported slowing cloud computing growth in its fiscal second quarter and provided disappointing third quarter guidance.

Profit taking may also have contributed to the early weakness after the S&P 500 briefly peeked above the 7,000 level for the first time during Wednesday's session.

A strong performance by shares of Meta Platforms (META) may have limited the downside after the Facebook parent reported better than expected fourth quarter results and forecast first quarter revenues above estimates.

Crude oil prices spiked on Thursday as Iran shrugged off U.S. threats to negotiate or face attack, causing concerns over possible supply disruptions. West Texas Intermediate crude for March delivery was up $2.23 or 3.53 percent at $65.44 per barrel.

Closer to home, Taiwan will provide preliminary Q4 GDP data later today, with forecasts suggesting an increase of 8.50 percent on year, up from 8.21 percent in the previous three months.