(RTTNews) - The Taiwan stock market has finished lower in two straight sessions, retreating almost 90 points or 0.5 percent along the way. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now sits just shy of the 17,430-point plateau and it's looking at another red light for Wednesday's trade.
The global forecast for the Asian markets suggests mild consolidation, thanks to sliding crude oil prices and coronavirus concerns. 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 lower on Tuesday following losses from the technology stocks and financial shares.
For the day, the index lost 66.43 points or 0.38 percent to finish at 17,428.87 after trading between 17,388.37 and 17,559.21.
Among the actives, Mega Financial eased 0.15 percent, while Fubon Financial collected 1.17 percent, First Financial lost 0.44 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company skidded 1.27 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation tanked 2.43 percent, Hon Hai Precision tumbled 2.25 percent, Largan Precision declined 1.48 percent, Catcher Technology retreated 1.85 percent, MediaTek advanced 0.78 percent, Delta Electronics sank 0.73 percent, Formosa Plastic perked 1.21 percent, Asia Cement added 0.56 percent, Taiwan Cement was down 0.10 percent and Cathay Financial, CTBC Financial and E Sun Financial were unchanged.
The lead from Wall Street is mixed as Dow and S&P opened in the red on Tuesday and finished the same way, while the NASDAQ opened slightly higher and managed to hold on to slim gains for a fresh record high.
The Dow dropped 269.09 points or 0.76 percent to finish at 35,100.00, while the NASDAQ added 10.81 points or 0.07 percent to close at 15,374.33 and the S&P 500 fell 15.40 points or 0.34 percent to end at 4,520.03.
The mixed open on Wall Street resulted in a cautious session with investors weighing the likely impact of surging coronavirus of the Delta variant on the pace of economic recovery.
Crude oil futures settled notably lower on Tuesday amid renewed worries about the outlook for energy demand due to continued surge in coronavirus cases in several countries. The drop in prices was also due to Saudi Arabia's decision to slash crude prices for Asia. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for October ended down $0.94 or 1.4 percent at $68.35 a barrel.
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