The Taiwan stock market has finished lower in three straight sessions, plunging more than 1,100 points or 4.9 percent along the way. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now sits just beneath the 22,870-point plateau and it\'s expected to open under pressure again on Monday.
The global forecast for the Asian markets is negative, with oil and technology shares likely to lead the way lower. The European and U.S. markets were down and the Asian bourses figure to follow that lead.
The TSE finished sharply lower on Friday with damage across the bard, especially among the technology companies.
For the day, the index plummeted 529.24 points or 2.26 percent to finish at 22,869.26 after trading between 22,865.84 and 23,235.82.
Among the actives, Cathay Financial retreated 2.49 percent, while Mega Financial shed 1.17 percent, CTBC Financial tumbled 2.84 percent, First Financial lost 0.85 percent, Fubon Financial slumped 1.49 percent, E Sun Financial slid 0.66 percent, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company surrendered 3.48 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation dropped 1.52 percent, Largan Precision tanked 3.65 percent, Catcher Technology plummeted 8.18 percent, MediaTek sank 1.56 percent, Delta Electronics fell 0.62 percent, Novatek Microelectronics declined 1.99 percent, Formosa Plastics weakened 1.15 percent, Nan Ya Plastics eased 0.59 percent, Asia Cement stumbled 1.92 percent and Hon Hai Precision was unchanged.
The lead from Wall Street is soft as the major averages opened mixed but quickly turned lower and spent the rest of the day solidly in the red.
The Dow tumbled 377.49 points or 0.93 percent to finish at 40,287.53, while the NASDAQ sank 144.28 points or 0.81 percent to end at 17,726.94 and the S&P 500 lost 39.59 points or 0.71 percent to close at 5,505.00.
For the week, the NASDAQ plunged 3.7 percent and the S&P 500 tumbled 2.0 percent, but the Dow rose 0.7 percent.
With concerns about the outlook for tech stocks recently weighing on Wall Street, negative sentiment may have been generated by a major IT outage.
The operations of major banks, media outlets, hospitals and airlines worldwide were affected due to the widespread outage, which was purportedly caused by an update by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike (CRWD).
Oil prices fell to a four-week low on Friday amid concerns about the outlook for demand from China and on renewed hopes of a ceasefire in Gaza, while a firm dollar also weighed on oil prices. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for August sank $2.69 or 3.25 percent at $80.13 a barrel, the lowest settlement since June 17.
Closer to home, Taiwan will provide June data for export orders and unemployment later today; in May, orders were up 7.0 percent on year, while the jobless rate came in at 3.35 percent.