China Stock Market Tipped To Open In The Red

(RTTNews) - The China stock market on Tuesday halted the nine-day winning streak in which it had rallied almost 140 points or 3.5 percent. The Shanghai Composite Index now sits just above the 3,965-point plateau and it's likely to open under water again on Wednesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is slightly soft as investors may look to book gains before the year's end. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourses were down and the Asian markets also figure to tick lower.

The SCI finished barely lower on Tuesday as losses from the financial shares and property stocks were mitigated by support from the oil and resource companies.

For the day, the index eased 0.16 points or 0.00 percent to finish at 3,965.12 after trading between 3,947.42 and 3,979.99. The Shenzhen Composite Index rose 5.05 points or 0.20 percent to end at 2,538.69.

Among the actives, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China fell 0.25 percent, while Bank of China slipped 0.18 percent, Agricultural Bank of China shed 0.39 percent, China Merchants Bank advanced 0.98 percent, Bank of Communications tumbled 1.76 percent, China Life Insurance declined 1.24 percent, Jiangxi Copper rallied 2.57 percent, Aluminum Corp of China (Chalco) surged 4.72 percent, Yankuang Energy retreated 1.56 percent, PetroChina jumped 1.89 percent, China Petroleum and Chemical (Sinopec) soared 2.67 percent, Huaneng Power plunged 3.78 percent, China Shenhua Energy added 0.62 percent, Gemdale tanked 1.94 percent, Poly Developments contracted 1.62 percent and China Vanke stumbled 2.53 percent

The lead from Wall Street is soft as the major averages opened lower on Tuesday and spent most of the day slightly in the red, ending near session lows.

The Dow sank 94.87 points or 0.20 percent to finish at 48,367.06, while the NASDAQ lost 55.27 points or 0.24 percent to close at 23,419.08 and the S&P 500 slipped 9.50 points or 0.14 percent to end at 6,896.24.

Traders initially seemed reluctant to make significant moves ahead of the release of the minutes of the Federal Reserve's latest monetary policy meeting.

However, trading activity remained subdued after the release of the minutes, which reiterated officials' mixed views about the outlook for interest rates. Participants expressed a "range of views" about the restrictiveness of the Fed's current monetary policy stance.

The Fed's next monetary policy meeting is scheduled for January 27-28, with CME Group's FedWatch Tool indicating an 83.9 percent chance the central bank will leave rates unchanged.

Crude oil prices edged lower on Tuesday as U.S. data showed a modest build in crude oil inventories. West Texas Intermediate crude for February delivery was down $0.16 or 0.28 percent at $57.92 per barrel.

Closer to home, China will see December results for the manufacturing, non-manufacturing and composite indexes from Caixin and the National Bureau of Statistics later this morning. In November, the Caixin manufacturing PMI had a score of 49.9, while the NBS manufacturing index was at 49.2, the non-manufacturing index was at 49.5 and the composite came in at 49.7.