The Taiwan stock market has moved lower in three straight sessions, shedding almost 350 points or 1.5 percent along the way. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now rests just beneath the 23,200-point plateau although it may stop the bleeding on Friday.
The global forecast for the Asian markets is mixed to higher, likely driven by the latest earnings news. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourses were mixed and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.
The TSE finished modestly lower again on Thursday as losses from the financial shares and technology stocks were offset by support from the plastic and cement sectors.
For the day, the index lost 142.24 points or 0.61 percent to finish at 23,192.52 after trading between 23,150.77 and 23,446.64.
Among the actives, Cathay Financial retreated 1.45 percent, while Mega Financial eased 0.13 percent, CTBC Financial shed 0.69 percent, First Financial collected 0.37 percent, Fubon Financial dropped 0.87 percent, E Sun Financial dipped 0.18 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation lost 0.60 percent, Hon Hai Precision stumbled 2.08 percent, Largan Precision declined 1.46 percent, Catcher Technology climbed 1.07 percent, MediaTek surrendered 2.31 percent, Delta Electronics slumped 1.25 percent, Novatek Microelectronics fell 0.19 percent, Nan Ya Plastics rallied 1.10 percent, Asia Cement gained 1.19 percent and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Formosa Plastics were unchanged.
The lead from Wall Street is murky as the major averages opened mixed on Thursday and finished the same way.
The Dow dropped 140.59 points or 0.33 percent to finish at 42,374.36, while the NASDAQ climbed 138.83 points or 0.76 percent to close at 18,415.49 and the S&P 500 rose 12.44 points or 0.21 percent to end at 5,809.86.
The strength on the tech-heavy NASDAQ was spurred by strong quarterly earnings from the likes of Tesla (TSLA) and UPS (UPS).
On the other hand, the Dow was weighed by weak quarterly earnings news from IBM (IBM), Honeywell (HON) and Boeing (BA).
Oil prices fell on Thursday, extending losses from the previous session as concerns about excess supply and weak crude consumption in China weighed. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for December ended down $0.58 or 0.8 percent at $70.19 a barrel.
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