The Taiwan stock market has climbed higher in four straight sessions, advancing almost 450 points or 4.2 percent along the way. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now rests just above the 11,390-point plateau although it's looking at a red light for Friday's trade.
The global forecast for the Asian markets is soft, with profit taking likely after recent strength. The European markets were down and the U.S. bourses were mixed and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.
The TSE finished modestly higher on Thursday following gains from the plastic stocks, weakness from the cement companies and mixed performances from the finance and technology companies.
For the day, the index gained 73.07 points or 0.65 percent to finish at 11,393.23 after trading between 11,341.58 and 11,425.42.
Among the actives, Cathay Financial gained 0.36 percent, while Mega Financial collected 0.32 percent, CTBC Financial lost 0.48 percent, First Financial eased 0.22 percent, E Sun Financial fell 0.35 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company jumped 1.66 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation added 0.62 percent, Hon Hai Precision rose 0.38 percent, Largan Precision shed 0.70 percent, Catcher Technology spiked 2.96 percent, Formosa Plastic increased 0.81 percent, Asia Cement skidded 1.11 percent, Taiwan Cement sank 0.57 percent and MediaTek and Fubon Financial were unchanged.
The lead from Wall Street offers little clarity as stocks turned in a lackluster performance on Thursday before eventually ending the day mixed.
The Dow added 11.93 points or 0.05 percent to finish at 26,281.82, while the NASDAQ shed 67.10 points or 0.69 percent to end at 9,615.81and the S&P 500 fell 10.52 points or 0.34 percent to close at 3,112.35.
The choppy trading on Wall Street came as traders took a breath to digest the recent strength and lock in gains; they also seemed reluctant to make more significant moves ahead of the Labor Department's closely watched monthly jobs report later today.
In economic news, the Labor Department said the pace of decline in first-time claims for unemployment benefits has begun to stall a bit, although there was an unexpected increase in continuing claims.
Earlier in the day, some buying interest was generated in reaction to the European Central Bank announcing additional stimulus to deal with the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.
Crude oil prices edged higher on Thursday after data showed that leading oil producers were in compliance with agreed production cuts. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for July ended up $0.12 or 0.3 percent at $37.41 a barrel.
Closer to home, Taiwan will release May figures for consumer and wholesale prices later today; in April, consumer prices fell 0.72 percent on month and 0.97 percent on year, while wholesale prices plummeted an annual 10.75 percent.
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