Higher Open Tipped For Hong Kong Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Hong Kong stock market rebounded on Thursday, one day after snapping the two-day winning streak in which it had climbed almost 250 points or 1 percent. The Hang Seng now sits just above the 25,930-point plateau and it may see mild upside again on Friday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is murky amidst a lack of catalysts, although oil and technology stocks may provide support. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourse were mixed and little changed and the Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.

The Hang Seng finished modestly higher on Thursday following gains from the financial shares, property stocks and technology companies.

For the day, the index rallied 175.17 points or 0.68 percent to finish at 25,935.90 after trading between 25,649.30 and 25,990.73.

Among the actives, Alibaba Group and JD.com both added 0.52 percent, while Alibaba Health Info and China Life Insurance both spiked 1.67 percent, ANTA Sports slumped 0.95 percent, China Resources Land gained 0.48 percent, CITIC and Nongfu Spring both perked 0.08 percent, CNOOC expanded 0.92 percent, CSPC Pharmaceutical shed 0.65 percent, Galaxy Entertainment dropped 0.93 percent, Haier Smart Home rallied 0.96 percent, Hang Lung Properties jumped 1.01 percent, Henderson Land strengthened 0.62 percent, Hong Kong & China Gas advanced 0.55 percent, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China collected 0.91 percent, Lenovo climbed 0.61 percent, Li Auto lost 0.50 percent, Li Ning sank 0.82 percent, Meituan soared 2.29 percent, New World Development accelerated 1.19 percent, Techtronic Industries rose 0.21 percent, Xiaomi Corporation surged 4.38 percent, WuXi Biologics skyrocketed 7.09 percent and China Mengniu Dairy was unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street offers little clarity as the major averages opened higher but spent the day bouncing back and forth across the changed line, finally ending mixed and little changed.

The Dow shed 31.96 points or 0.07 percent to finish at 47,850.94, while the NASDAQ added 51.04 points or 0.22 percent to close at 23,505.14 and the S&P 500 rose 7.40 points or 0.11 percent to end at 6,857.12.

The lackluster performance on Wall Street came as traders took a step back to assess the near-term outlook for the markets following the volatility earlier in the week.

Traders largely shrugged off a report from the Labor Department showing first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell to a three-year low last week.

While the data partly offset recent optimism about the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates next week, the central bank is still widely expected to lower rates by another quarter point.

Crude oil prices advanced on Thursday as expectations of an end to the Russia-Ukraine war dimmed. West Texas Intermediate crude for January delivery was up $0.70 or 1.19 percent at $59.65 per barrel.