Taiwan stocks fell sharply, giving up the 49,000 level right at the open — bad news for investors who had chased the market higher in the short term, though longer-term analysts remain upbeat about the outlook.

• The Taiwan market opened weak, falling as low as 48,401 during the session. TSMC dropped NT$40 to NT$2,500, while heavyweights such as Hon Hai, Delta Electronics and MediaTek also opened lower.
• US stocks were mixed the previous day: the Dow closed higher while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq ended lower. Components of the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index weakened across the board, with Nvidia, Micron and AMD all falling.
• An attack on Riyadh's international airport over the weekend pushed oil prices up, and persistently high energy prices have heightened market concerns about inflation. The yield on the 30-year US Treasury has risen to a 24-year high.
• Chroma ATE saw NT$58.59 million in settlement defaults, the 21st such case this year, a sign of weak investor confidence amid volatility at high levels. Hantest, which listed on the over-the-counter market just 20 days ago, was also hammered down to its limit-down price.
• Analyst Tu Chin-lung, by contrast, is bullish, arguing that the Taiwan market has ample upward momentum from the fourth quarter through the first half of next year, and could challenge the 53,000–60,000 range as early as May next year. He singled out TSMC and MediaTek as stocks to accumulate in stages on pullbacks.

Outlook: The focus this week is on US CPI, PPI and retail sales data, as well as earnings from major banks including Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and JPMorgan, along with TSMC's investor conference on Thursday. Short-term volatility is hard to avoid — in the trading day following these investor conferences, the share price has fallen an average of 1.5%, mostly on short-term profit-taking.