Taiwan shares climb on Wall Street and oil prices

Taiwan stocks ended 3.7 percent higher on Monday, as easing oil prices as well as gains in US and tech-heavy Asian markets convinced investors to hasten a rebound from a two-week closing low hit last week.
The TAIEX share index gained 210.93 points to finish at 5,935.82, advancing for a second session to approach heavy technical resistance just beyond 6,000 points.
Sentiment was cautious, however, with domestic demand issues like banking leading the charge rather than volatile technology shares. Mega Financial Holdings, the island's second largest financial firm, rose the seven percent daily trading limit to T$22.20 in heavy volume.
"US stocks and lower oil prices helped to extend this rebound. Asian markets are also doing well," said Alvin Teng, assistant research manager at SinoPac Securities.
"But investors are picking very domestic shares like banking and construction," he said, forecasting the rebound to halt at about 6,000 points. "I think there is still a lot of static when it comes to electronic stocks' fundamentals," Teng said.
The electronics sub-index rose 3.46 percent, lagging the 5.84 percent jump in the banking and insurance sub-index, as heavyweight semi-conductor shares posted firm gains.
United Microelectronics Corp, the world's second-largest contract microchip maker, rose 4.68 percent in active trading of 71 million shares.
The Nasdaq composite index added 0.94 percent and the Philadelphia semiconductor index rose 1.61 percent on Friday, boosted by semiconductor giant Intel Corp's upbeat revision to its quarterly revenue forecast.
Tokyo's Nikkei was up 3.15 percent at the close of Taipei's trading day, while New York July crude settled down two percent on Friday at US $38.49.
Taipei's turnover was modest at T$78.3 billion despite the day's sharp advance, pointing to the cautious sentiment. Trading was up from a sluggish T$70.5 billion on Friday, however.
June TAIEX futures also kept a moderate discount to the spot price despite surging 5.05 percent to 5,890. The over-the-counter market's TAISDAQ share index gained 3.13 points, or 2.5 percent, to end at 128.43.