Ahead of Tuesdays holiday for the Mid-Autumn Festival, the Taiwan stock market had finished higher in three straight sessions, rallying more than 810 points or 3.9 percent along the way. The Taiwan Stock Exchange now sits just above the 21,850-point plateau and its looking at another green light for Wednesdays trade.
The global forecast for the Asian markets is flat ahead of the Federal Reserves monetary policy decision later today. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourses were mixed and flat and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.
The TSE finished modestly higher on Monday following gains from the plastics and mixed performances from the financial shares and technology stocks.
For the day, the index rallied 90.43 points or 0.42 percent to finish at 21,850.08 after trading between 21,736.70 and 21,854.74.
Among the actives, Cathay Financial eased 0.16 percent, while Mega Financial collected 0.51 percent, CTBC Financial gained 0.46 percent, First Financial rose 0.37 percent, Fubon Financial was up 0.12 percent, E Sun Financial lost 0.36 percent, United Microelectronics Corporation dipped 0.18 percent, Hon Hai Precision spiked 2.84 percent, Largan Precision plunged 2.96 percent, Catcher Technology shed 0.63 percent, MediaTek added 0.44 percent, Delta Electronics perked 0.13 percent, Novatek Microelectronics fell 0.37 percent, Formosa Plastics rallied 2.77 percent, Nan Ya Plastics climbed 1.08 percent, Asia Cement gathered 0.22 percent and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company was unchanged.
The lead from Wall Street offers little guidance as the major averages opened slightly higher on Tuesday, hugged the line for most of the day before ending mixed and little changed.
The Dow sank 60.32 points or 0.14 percent to finish at 41,606.18, while the NASDAQ added 35.93 points or 0.20 percent to close at 17,628.06 and the S&P 500 perked 1.49 points or 0.03 percent to end at 5,634.58.
Optimism about the outlook for interest rates contributed to early strength on Wall Street, but buying interest waned over the course of the session.
Stocks ended the day little changed following the release of a Commerce Department report unexpectedly showing a modest increase by U.S. retail sales in the month of August.
While the data is positive for the economy, it was seen as reducing the likelihood the Federal Reserve will lower interest rates by 50 basis points when announcing its highly anticipated monetary policy decision later today.
Oil prices climbed higher on Tuesday as concerns about tight supply in the market offset continued uncertainty about the outlook for demand from China. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for October ended higher by $1.10 or 1.5 percent at $71.19 a barrel.