Taiex Snaps Four Day Losing Streak

After plunging a total of 9.5% in the first four trading sessions of this week the Taiex is up 1.5% in early trade. The drop in equity indices translated into a 1% decline in TWD. Markets await earnings from Hon Hai Precision to gauge the electronics industry, the firm is a major supplier of Apple and is expected to report robust profits after Apple's bumper earnings report in April. There was a power outage after a plant failure, TSMC said that operations were not impacted.

• On the coronavirus front the Taiwanese PM has said there is no need to raise the alert level for now, adding that compared to the first wave of the pandemic Taiwan is much better prepared. It follows comments from health Minister Chen earlier this week that the alert level could be raised and non-essential businesses could be closed. There were reports late yesterday that despite the benign economic conditions in Taiwan amid robust demand for electronics the cabinet plans to raise the COVID-19 relief spending cap to TWD 630bn from TWD 210bn.
• USD/TWD is last down 0.046 at 27.942 after briefly popping above 28.00 yesterday.