China Stock Market May Extend Winning Streak

(RTTNews) - The China stock market has climbed higher in three straight sessions, gathering more than 50 points or 1.8 percent along the way. The Shanghai Composite Index now sits just beneath the 3,000-point plateau and it's likely to see additional support on Wednesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets suggests little movement ahead of Friday's U.S. employment data. The European markets were down and the U.S. bourses were up and the Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.

The SCI finished barely higher on Tuesday as gains from the financials and oil companies were dented by heavy losses from the property sector.

For the day, the index perked 2.28 points or 0.08 percent to finish at 2,997.01 after trading between 2,989.47 and 3,004.99. The Shenzhen Composite Index slumped 9.75 points or 0.60 percent to end at 1,620.74.

Among the actives, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China soared 2.58 percent, while Bank of China accelerated 1.93 percent, Agricultural Bank of China jumped 1.80 percent, China Construction Bank collected 1.72 percent, China Merchants Bank spiked 2.10 percent, Bank of Communications strengthened 1.33 percent, China Life Insurance retreated 1.44 percent, Jiangxi Copper declined 1.49 percent, Aluminum Corporation of China (Chalco) retreated 1.39 percent, Yankuang Energy rose 0.34 percent, PetroChina rallied 2.21 percent, China Petroleum and Chemical (Sinopec) advanced 0.94 percent, Huaneng Power was up 0.31 percent, China Shenhua Energy climbed 1.15 percent, Gemdale surrendered 2.75 percent, Poly Developments tanked 3.01 percent and China Vanke tumbled 2.19 percent.

The lead from Wall Street is positive as the major averages opened lower on Tuesday and hugged the line for much of the day before a late surge sent them firmly into the green by the close.

The Dow jumped 162.33 points or 0.41 percent to finish at 39,331.85, while the NASDAQ rallied 149.46 points or 0.84 percent to close at 18,028.76 and the S&P 500 gained 33.92 points or 0.62 percent to end at 5,509.01.

The soft start on Wall Street followed comments from Fed Chair Jerome Powell, who expressed satisfaction with the progress on inflation but said he wants to see more before being confident enough to start cutting interest rates.

Stocks moved higher after bond yields drifted down as investors look ahead to key employment data later in the week.

Oil prices fell on Tuesday amid easing fears about supply disruptions caused by Hurricane Beryl. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for August ended down $0.57 or about 0.7 percent at $82.81 a barrel.