China Shares Overdue For Profit Taking

(RTTNews) - The China stock market has tracked higher in eight straight sessions, advancing more than 365 points or 13.5 percent along the way. The Shanghai Composite now sits just above the 3,085-point plateau - and it's got to run out of steam sometime, right?

The global forecast for the Asian markets suggests little movement amidst a lack of catalysts. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourses were mixed and the Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.

The SCI finished sharply higher again on Friday following gains from the resource, property and energy stocks, although the financials were down on profit taking.

For the day, the index surged 86.58 points or 2.88 percent to finish at the daily high of 3,087.53 after trading as low as 3,017.45. The Shenzhen Composite Index skyrocketed 99.20 points or 6.05 percent to end at 1,737.56.

Among the actives, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China tanked 3.06 percent, while China Construction Bank and Agricultural Bank of China both surrendered 3.89 percent, China Merchants Bank collected 0.71 percent, China Life Insurance jumped 1.96 percent, Jiangxi Copper rallied 3.95 percent, Aluminum Corp of China (Chalco) soared 3,70 percent, Yankuang Energy strengthened 1.58 percent, PetroChina eased 0.12 percent, China Petroleum and Chemical (Sinopec) retreated 1.33 percent, Huaneng Power spiked 2.99 percent, China Shenhua Energy tumbled 2.15 percent and Gemdale, Poly Developments and China Vanke all surged by the 10 percent daily limit

The lead from Wall Street offers little clarity as the major averages opened slightly higher on Friday but wound up mixed and little changed.

The Dow climbed 137.89 points or 0.33 percent to finish at a record 42,313,00, while the NASDAQ slumped 70.70 points or 0.39 percent to close at 18,119.59 and the S&P 500 dipped 7.20 points or 0.13 percent to end at 5,738.17. For the week, the NASDAQ climbed 1.0 percent and the Dow and S&P both rose 0.6 percent.

The mixed performance on Wall Street came following the release of closely watched readings on U.S. consumer price inflation in August.

The Commerce Department said its personal consumption expenditures price index inched up by 0.1 percent in August after rising 0.2 percent in July. The uptick matched expectations.

Oil futures closed higher on Friday as additional stimulus measures from the Chinese government eased concerns about the outlook for demand. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for November added $0.51 or at $68.18 a barrel.

Closer to home, China will see September results for the manufacturing PMIs from both Caixin and from the National Bureau of Statistics later this morning. Caixin's manufacturing index is expected to see a score of 50.5, up from 50.4 in August, while the services PMI is called steady at 51.6. The NBS manufacturing PMI is expected to rise to 49.4 from 49.1, while the non-manufacturing PMI is tipped to rise to 50.4 from 50.3.