Hong Kong Bourse May Extend Wednesday's Losses

(RTTNews) - The Hong Kong stock market on Wednesday wrote a finish to the three-day winning streak in which it had improved more than 200 points or 0.9 percent. The Hang Seng Index now sits just above the 20,380-point plateau and it's expected to open to the downside again on Thursday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is negative on mixed corporate and economic news. The European and U.S. markets finished under water and the Asian bourses are expected to open in similar fashion.

The Hang Seng finished sharply lower across the board on Wednesday with damage across the board, especially among the properties and technology stocks.

For the day, the index plummeted 320.50 points or 1.55 percent to finish at 20,380.64 after trading between 20,270.07 and 20,681.52.

Among the actives, Alibaba Group skidded 1.74 percent, while Alibaba Health Info shed 1.50 percent, ANTA Sports tanked 3.35 percent, China Life Insurance crashed 2.73 percent, China Mengniu Dairy and China Resources Land both slid 0.59 percent, CITIC dropped 1.72 percent, CNOOC and ENN Energy both stumbled 2.17 percent, CSPC Pharmaceutical slumped 1.77 percent, Galaxy Entertainment slipped 0.57 percent, Haier Smart Home surrendered 2.85 percent, Hang Lung Properties lost 1.36 percent, Henderson Land eased 0.20 percent, Hong Kong & China Gas was down 0.49 percent, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China sank 1.70 percent, JD.com plunged 4.06 percent, Lenovo declined 2.23 percent, Li Auto tumbled 2.51 percent, Li Ning fell 1.24 percent, Meituan retreated 2.43 percent, New World Development gave up 1.59 percent, Nongfu Spring dipped 0.51 percent, Techtronic Industries weakened 1.82 percent, Xiaomi Corporation added 0.58 percent and WuXi Biologics plummeted 4.22 percent.

The lead from Wall Street is soft as the major averages opened lower on Wednesday but then bounced higher for most of the day before a late slump saw them finish in the red.

The Dow dropped 91.51 points or 0.22 percent to finish at 42,141.54, while the NASDAQ tumbled 104.82 points or 0.56 percent to close at 18,607.93 and the S&P 500 sank 19.25 points or 0.33 percent to end at 5,813.67.

The choppy trading came as investors reacted to a mixed batch of corporate earnings as Alphabet (GOOGL) and Snap (SNAP) rallied after good results, while Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Caterpillar (CAT) stumbled after disappointing.

On the U.S. economic front, payroll processor ADP said private sector employment in the U.S. shot up much more than anticipated in October, although a a separate report released by the Commerce Department showed U.S. economic growth unexpectedly slowed in the third quarter.

Oil prices moved higher on Wednesday after data showed an unexpected drop in U.S. crude inventories last week and on reports that OPEC may delay its planned output increase. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for December closed up $1.40 or 2.1 percent at $68.61 a barrel.

Closer to home, Hong Kong will release preliminary Q3 GDP figures later today, with forecasts suggesting a flat quarterly reading and am annual increase of 3.1 percent. That follows the 0.4 percent quarterly increase and the 3.3 percent yearly gain in Q2.