China Stock Market May See Profit Taking On Thursday

(RTTNews) - Ahead of the long weekend for Labor Day, the China stock market had moved higher in two straight sessions, collecting almost 60 points or 1.9 percent along the way. The Shanghai Composite Index now sits just beneath the 3,325-point plateau although investors may lock in gains on Thursday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is soft on sliding oil prices and renewed uncertainty over the outlook for interest rates. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourses were down and the Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.

The SCI finished sharply higher on Friday following gains from the properties and resource stocks, while the financials came in mixed.

For the day, the index climbed 37.39 points or 1.14 percent to finish at 3,323.27 after trading between 3,283.12 and 3,324.88. The Shenzhen Composite Index jumped 28.57 points or 1.41 percent to end at 2,056.04.

Among the actives, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China shed 0.63 percent, while China Construction Bank eased 0.16 percent, China Merchants Bank rallied.97 percent, China Life Insurance strengthened 1.38 percent, Jiangxi Copper jumped 1.54 percent, Aluminum Corp of China (Chalco) spiked 3.06 percent, Yankuang Energy accelerated 1.96 percent, PetroChina skyrocketed 5.20 percent, China Petroleum and Chemical (Sinopec) soared 1.82 percent, Huaneng Power added 0.52 percent, China Shenhua Energy climbed 1.25 percent, Gemdale gained 0.49 percent, Poly Developments and Beijing Capital Development both rose 0.22 percent, China Vanke advanced 1.47 percent and China Fortune Land, Bank of China and Bank of Communications were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is negative as the major averages spent much of the day hugging the unchanged line before sinking late in afternoon.

The Dow tumbled 270.29 points or 0.80 percent to finish at 33,414.24, while the NASDAQ lost 55.18 points or 0.46 percent to end at 12,025.33 and the S&P 500 sank 28.83 points or 0.70 percent to close at 4,090.75.

The lower close on Wall Street came after the Federal Reserve announced its widely expected decision to raise interest rates by another quarter-point but appeared to signal a potential pause in rate hikes.

However, Fed Chair Jerome Powell's comments during his post-meeting press conference led to renewed uncertainty about the outlook for rates.

Powell said the central bank would take a "data-dependent approach" to future monetary policy decisions and stressed a decision on a pause was not made at the meeting.

Crude oil prices fell sharply on Wednesday amid concerns about economic growth and the outlook for energy demand, as well as data showing an increase in gasoline inventories. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for June ended down $3.06 or 4.3 percent at $68.60 a barrel, the lowest settlement since March 24.

Closer to home, China will see April results for the manufacturing PMI from Caixin later this morning, with forecasts calling for a score of 50.3 - up from 50.0 in March.