China Bourse May Reverse Tuesday's Losses

(RTTNews) - The China stock market on Tuesday ended the three-day winning streak in which it had gained almost 50 points or 1.3 percent. The Shanghai Composite Index now sits just shy of the 3,900-point plateau although it may bounce higher again on Wednesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is upbeat, with technology shares expected to lead the markets higher. The European markets were mixed and little changed and the U.S. bourses were modestly higher and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

The SCI finished modestly lower on Tuesday following losses from the resource stocks and mixed performances from the financial shares and property stocks.

For the day, the index lost 16.29 points or 0.42 percent to finish at 3,897.71 after trading between 3,888.33 and 3,908.77. The Shenzhen Composite Index sank 16.67 points or 0.67 percent to end at 2,462.26.

Among the actives, Bank of China was down 0.16 percent, while Agricultural Bank of China rose 0.38 percent, China Merchants Bank eased 0.14 percent, Bank of Communications sank 0.52 percent, China Life Insurance collected 0.43 percent, Jiangxi Copper dropped 0.98 percent, Aluminum Corp of China (Chalco) skidded 1.03 percent, Yankuang Energy fell 0.36 percent, PetroChina gained 0.40 percent, China Petroleum and Chemical (Sinopec) rallied 2.22 percent, Huaneng Power dipped 0.25 percent, China Shenhua Energy added 0.63 percent, Gemdale lost 0.59 percent, Poly Developments shed 0.45 percent and China Vanke and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is cautiously optimistic as the major averages opened higher on Tuesday and remained in the green throughout the session, although it was a choppy day.

The Dow climbed 185.13 points or 0.39 percent to finish at 47,474.46, while the NASDAQ jumped 137.75 points or 0.59 percent to close at 23,413.67 and the S&P 500 added 16.74 points or 0.25 percent to end at 6,829.37.

The strength on Wall Street came amid a strong rebound by Bitcoin, as the cryptocurrency soared by more than 6 percent after moving sharply lower on Monday. Bitcoin's rally along with an advance by AI darling Nvidia (NVDA) may have been an indication of renewed risk appetite.

Semiconductor stocks helped lead the markets higher, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index jumping by 1.8 percent. Considerable strength was also visible among computer stocks, as reflected by the 1.7 percent gain posted by the NYSE Arca Computer Hardware Index.

Crude oil prices gave ground on Tuesday as efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict have sent positive signals of a ceasefire sooner than expected. West Texas Intermediate crude for January delivery was down $0.55 or 0.93 percent at $58.77 per barrel.