The Taiwan stock market has closed higher now in consecutive trading days, rising more than 90 points or 1.1 percent in that span. The Taiwan Stock Exchange finished just above the 8,620-point plateau, and now traders are expected to take some profits when the market kicks off trade on Thursday.
The global forecast for the Asian markets is firmly negative following downbeat economic news from the United States. Airlines figure to lead the markets lower, along with retail stocks and financials - although gold may provide some support. The European and U.S. markets finished under pressure, and the Asian markets also are expected to track to the downside.
The TSE finished modestly higher on Wednesday following gains from the financial, cement, textile, technology and construction sectors.
For the day, the index gathered 23.42 points or 0.27 percent to finish at 8,621.04 after trading between 8,598.08 and 8,679.37 on turnover of 100.20 billion Taiwan dollars.
Among the actives, HTC surged 5.39 percent and Hon Hai Precision shed 1.49 percent.
The lead from Wall Street suggests consolidation as stocks came under pressure on Wednesday after showing a lack of direction throughout much of the day. The pullback was partly due to news that the Federal Reserve lowered its forecast for U.S. economic growth.
Following a two-day meeting, the Fed announced its widely expected decision to keep its target for the federal funds rate at zero to 0.25 percent and reiterated that rates are likely to remain at exceptionally low levels for an extended period. The central bank also said it will complete its $600 billion Treasury purchase program by the end of this month, as scheduled, and said it will maintain its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its securities holdings.
However, the Fed indicated that the economic recovery is continuing at a somewhat slower than expected pace and downwardly revised its growth outlook for 2011 to between 2.7 and 2.9 percent from its previous outlook for 3.1 to 3.3 percent growth. The Fed also downwardly revised its outlook for U.S. economic growth in 2012 and forecast that the unemployment rates in both 2011 and 2012 would be above its April estimates.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke blamed the slower pace of the recovery on "temporary" factors such as rising consumer prices and supply chain problems resulting from the natural disaster in Japanese. At the same time, the Fed chief acknowledged that some of the economic headwinds could persist into next year.
Among individual stocks, Adobe Systems (ADBE) fell by 6.3 percent after the diversified software company reported better than expected second quarter results but provided disappointing guidance.
Meanwhile, shares of FedEx (FDX) rose by 2.6 percent after the delivery giant reported better than expected fourth quarter results and said it is well positioned to deliver strong earnings growth in fiscal 2012.
The major averages ended the session just off their worst levels of the day. The Dow fell 80.34 points or 0.7 percent to 12,109.67, the NASDAQ dropped 18.07 points or 0.7 percent to 2,669.19 and the S&P 500 slid 8.38 points or 0.7 percent to 1,287.14.
In economic news, Taiwan will on Thursday provide May figures for commercial sales and industrial production. Sales are expected to rise 4.2 percent on year following the 4.87 percent increase in April. Output is tipped to climb 5.9 percent on year after rising 6.85 percent in the previous month.
Also, Taiwan's unemployment rate rose to a seasonally adjusted 4.41 percent in May from 4.35 percent in April, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics said on Wednesday. The consensus forecast called for a rate of 4.3 percent. Meanwhile, the unadjusted jobless rate fell slightly to 4.27 percent from 4.29 percent in the previous month. The labor force participation rate came in at 57.97 percent compared to 57.91 percent in April. The number of unemployed totaled 476,000, down from 477,000 in March.
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