The Taiwan stock market has climbed higher in four straight sessions, rallying more than 1,100 points or 4.6 percent along the way. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now sits just beneath the 23,880-point plateau although investors may lock in gains on Tuesday.
The global forecast for the Asian markets is flat to higher on uncertainty over the outlook for interest rates. The European markets were down and the U.S. bourses were mixed and flat and the Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.
The TSE finished sharply higher again on Monday following gains from the financial shares, technology stocks and plastics companies.
For the day, the index soared 321.56 points or 1.37 percent to finish at 23,878.15 after trading between 23,505.86 and 24,011.64.
Among the actives, Cathay Financial jumped 1.63 percent, while CTBC Financial perked 0.12 percent, First Financial rose 0.17 percent, Fubon Financial collected 1.30 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company accelerated 2.99 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation spiked 3.36 percent, Hon Hai Precision surged 5.59 percent, Largan Precision rallied 4.66 percent, Catcher Technology skidded 1.09 percent, MediaTek soared 5.19 percent, Delta Electronics improved 3.88 percent, Novatek Microelectronics dropped 0.97 percent, Formosa Plastics climbed 1.22 percent, Nan Ya Plastics advanced 0.92 percent, Asia Cement eased 0.11 percent and Mega Financial and E Sun Financial were unchanged.
The lead from Wall Street offers little clarity as the major averages opened higher on Monday but quickly faded and spent the rest of the day bouncing back and forth across the line before ending mixed and little changed.
The Dow shed 31.08 points or 0.08 percent to finish at 39,344.79, while the NASDAQ added 50.98 points or 0.28 percent to close at a record 18,403.74 and the S&P rose 5.66 points or 0.10 percent to end at 5,572.85 - also a record.
The inconsistency on Wall Street reflected uncertainty about the outlook for interest rates ahead of several key economic events this week, including reports on consumer and producer prices.
Traders are also likely to pay close attention to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell\'s congressional testimony this week, looking for clues about the interest rate outlook.
Oil prices fell on Monday after Hurricane Beryl forced the shutdown of some oil export facilities near Houston. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for August ended down $0.83 or 1 percent at $82.33 a barrel.