China Stock Market Tipped To Open In The Red

(RTTNews) - The China stock market on Friday ended the two-day slide in which it had slipped more than 15 points or 0.4 percent. The Shanghai Composite Index now rests just above the 3,200-point plateau although it's likely to turn lower again on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is soft on recession concerns and 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 modestly higher on Friday following gains from the properties and mixed performances from the financials and resource stocks.

For the day, the index rose 9.60 points or 0.30 percent to finish at 3,206.95 after trading between 3,182.91 and 3,212.11. The Shenzhen Composite Index added 11.47 points or 0.56 percent to end at 2,075.84.

Among the actives, China Construction Bank fell 0.36 percent, while China Merchants Bank soared 3.67 percent, Bank of Communications slid 0.42 percent, China Life Insurance and China Petroleum and Chemical (Sinopec) both shed 0.44 percent, Jiangxi Copper spiked 2.96 percent, Aluminum Corp of China (Chalco) rallied 2.51 percent, Yankuang Energy advanced 0.94 percent, PetroChina dipped 0.19 percent, Huaneng Power plunged 2.64 percent, China Shenhua Energy was up 0.03 percent, Gemdale surged 4.50 percent, Poly Developments accelerated 3.13 percent, China Vanke skyrocketed 5.57 percent, China Fortune Land added 0.35 percent, Beijing Capital Development jumped 1.78 percent and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Bank of China were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is negative as the major averages opened in the red, ticked higher midday but slumped going into the close.

The Dow dropped 305.04 points or 0.90 percent to finish at 33,476.46, while the NASDAQ sank 77.38 points or 0.70 percent to close at 11,004.62 and the S&P 500 lost 29.13 points or 0.73 percent to end at 3,934.38.

For the week, the NASDAQ plunged 4.0 percent, the S&P sank 3.4 percent and the Dow dropped 2.8 percent.

The late-day weakness on Wall Street came as traders looked ahead to this week's highly anticipated Federal Reserve meeting.

While the Fed is widely expected to slow the pace of interest rate hikes to 50 basis points, traders have recently expressed concerns about how much further the Fed will need to raise rates in order to contain inflation.

Adding to concerns about the outlook for interest rates, the Labor Department said U.S producer prices increased more than expected last month. But the negative sentiment was partly offset by a report from the University of Michigan showing a decrease in consumers' inflation expectations.

Crude oil futures fell on Friday. weighed down by concerns about the outlook for energy demand due to a possible global economic recession amid policy tightening by central banks. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for January ended lower by $0.44 or 0.6 percent at $71.02 a barrel. WTI crude futures sank 11.6 percent in the week.