The Taiwan stock market on Friday wrote a finish to the three-day winning streak in which it had surged more than 900 points or 4 percent. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now sits just above the 23,250-point plateau and it may take further damage on Monday.
The global forecast for the Asian markets is weak, with oil and technology stocks likely to weigh on the markets. The European markets were down and the U.S. bourses were mixed and flat and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.
The TSE finished modestly lower on Friday following losses from the financial shares and technology stocks.
For the day, the index slumped 152.71 points or 0.65 percent to finish at 23,253.39 after trading between 23,151.15 and 23,351.17.
Among the actives, CTBC Financial fell 0.39 percent, while First Financial slid 0.36 percent, Fubon Financial collected 0.38 percent, E Sun Financial lost 0.34 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company skidded 1.12 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation added 0.35 percent, Hon Hai Precision plunged 2.53 percent, Largan Precision tanked 2.08 percent, Catcher Technology dropped 0.86 percent, MediaTek shed 0.67 percent, Delta Electronics surged 3.65 percent, Novatek Microelectronics dipped 0.16 percent, Formosa Plastics sank 0.50 percent, Nan Ya Plastics rose 0.39 percent, Asia Cement gained 0.56 percent and Cathay Financial and Mega Financial were unchanged.
The lead from Wall Street is soft as the major averages opened lower on Friday and ultimately finished mixed but little changed.
The Dow added 15.53 points or 0.04 percent to finish at 39,150.33, while the NASDAQ shed 32.24 points or 0.18 percent to end at 17,689.36 and the S&P 500 dipped 8.55 points or 0.16 percent to close at 5,464.62.
For the holiday-shortened week, the Dow jumped 1.5 percent and the S&P 500 climbed 0.6 percent, while the NASDAQ was nearly unchanged.
The choppy trading on Wall Street came as traders assessed recent activity in the markets, which saw the NASDAQ and the S&P 500 reach new record intraday highs before turning lower.
Traders also kept an eye on shares of Nvidia (NVDA), as the AI darling has recently been a key driver of the markets. It dragged the technology shares lower after slumping 3.2 percent on Friday after briefly surpassing Microsoft (MSFT) as the world\'s most valuable public company.
On the economic front, the National Association of Realtors said existing home sales in the U.S. fell roughly in line with estimates in May. A separate report from the Conference Board said leading U.S. economic indicators fell more than expected last month.
Oil futures settled lower on Friday, weighed down by concerns about the outlook for global oil demand and a firm greenback. West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures for July shed $0.56 or 0.7 percent at $80.73 a barrel for the week but gained 3 percent for the week.
Closer to home, Taiwan will release May numbers for industrial production and unemployment later today. In April, industrial production was up 14.61 percent on year, while the jobless rate came in at 3.39 percent.