China Shares May Take Further Damage On Monday

(RTTNews) - The China stock market turned lower again on Friday, one day after ending the two-day slide in which it had eased just 3 points or 0.1 percent. The Shanghai Composite Index now sits just above the 3,350-point plateau and the losses may accelerate on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is weak on concerns over the health of the world economy. The European and U.S. markets were down and the Asian bourses are expected to open in similar fashion.

The SCI finished modestly lower on Friday following losses from the financial shares, property stocks and resource companies.

For the day, the index shed 22.44 points or 0.67 percent to finish at 3.351.31 after trading between 3,346.08 and 3,375.05. The Shenzhen Composite Index dropped 18.43 points or 0.90 percent to end at 2.026.18.

Among the actives, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China perked 0.15 percent, while Bank of China shed 0.54 percent, China Construction Bank retreated 1.27 percent, China Merchants Bank eased 0.09 percent, Agricultural Bank of China dropped 0.97 percent, China Life Insurance lost 0.66 percent, Jiangxi Copper added 0.47 percent, Aluminum Corp of China (Chalco) sank 0.92 percent, Yankuang Energy tanked 2.16 percent, PetroChina declined 1.22 percent, China Petroleum and Chemical (Sinopec) skidded 1.03 percent, Huaneng Power slumped 0.88 percent, China Shenhua Energy fell 0.39 percent, Gemdale gained 0.65 percent, Poly Developments dipped 0.24 percent and China Vanke was down 0.70 percent.

The lead from Wall Street is brutal as the major averages opened lower on Friday and only got worse as the day progressed, ending near session lows.

The Dow plummeted 715.80 points or 1.69 percent to end at 41,583.90, while the NASDAQ tumbled 481.01 points or 2.70 percent to close at 17.322.99 and the S&P 500 dropped 112.37 points or 1.97 percent to end at 5,580.94. For the week, the NASDAQ plunged 2.6 percent, while the S&P lost 1.5 percent and the Dow shed 1.0 percent.

The sell-off on Wall Street came amid concerns about the outlook for the economy following the latest data, including the Federal Reserve's preferred readings on inflation.

While the Commerce Department report showed consumer prices increased in line with economist estimates, core consumer prices rose by slightly more than expected.

Stocks saw further downside after the University of Michigan released revised data showing consumer sentiment deteriorated more than estimated in March.

Oil prices fell Friday, but the most active futures contract still posted a weekly gain amid prospects of tighter supplies following the U.S. sanctions on Iran and Venezuela. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for May settled at $69.36 a barrel, losing $0.56 or 0.8 percent. WTI crude futures gained 1.6 percent in the week.

Closer to home, China will release March results for its manufacturing, non-manufacturing and composite indexes from the National Bureau of Statistics later this morning; in February, their scores were 50.2, 50.4 and 51.1, respectively.