China Stock Market May Find Traction On Monday

(RTTNews) - Ahead of the long weekend for the Ching Ming Festival, the China stock market had moved lower in back-to-back sessions, sinking just 8 points or 0.3 percent in that span. The Shanghai Composite Index now sits just beneath the 3,070-point plateau although it's due for support on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is cautiously optimistic following better than expected 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 slightly lower on Wednesday as losses from the financial shares and property stocks were mitigated by support from the resource companies.

For the day, the index dipped 5.66 points or 0.18 percent to finish at 3,069.30 after trading between 3,057.40 and 3,079.02. The Shenzhen Composite Index lost 11.73 points or 0.66 percent to end at 1,767.96.

Among the actives, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China dipped 0.19 percent, while Bank of China shed 0.44 percent, China Construction Bank eased 0.14 percent, China Merchants Bank dropped 0.98 percent, Bank of Communications collected 0.15 percent, China Life Insurance lost 0.62 percent, Jiangxi Copper surged 5.32 percent, Aluminum Corp of China (Chalco) spiked 3.60 percent, Yankuang Energy soared 3.70 percent, PetroChina jumped 2.21 percent, China Petroleum and Chemical (Sinopec) added 0.46 percent, Huaneng Power was down 0.11 percent, China Shenhua Energy strengthened 1.38 percent, Gemdale plunged 2.40 percent, Poly Developments sank 0.57 percent and China Vanke plummeted 3.65 percent.

The lead from Wall Street is positive as the major averages opened higher and remained firmly in the green throughout the session.

The Dow jumped 307.06 points or 0.80 percent to finish at 38,904.04, while the NASDAQ rallied 199.42 points or 1.24 percent to end at 16,248.52 and the S&P 500 advanced 57.13 points or 1.11 percent to close at 5,204.34.

For the week, the Dow plunged 2.3 percent, the S&P 500 slumped 1.0 percent and the NASDAQ slid 0.8 percent.

The strength on Wall Street followed the release of the closely watched Labor Department report showing much stronger than expected job growth in March.

While the stronger than expected job growth may have added to recent concerns about the outlook for interest rates, the report also showed a continued slowdown in the annual rate of wage growth.

Oil futures rose on Friday, extending recent gains on supply worries due to geopolitical tensions. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for May added $0.32 or 0.37 percent at $86.91 a barrel, settling at a fresh five-month high. WTI crude futures gained 4 percent in the week.