Hong Kong Shares May Head South Again On Thursday

(RTTNews) - The Hong Kong stock market on Wednesday ended the two-day slide in which it had slumped almost 300 points or 1.2 percent. The Hang Seng Index now rests just above the 26,110-point plateau although it may see renewed consolidation on Thursday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is soft on surging oil prices and uncertainty about the conflict in the Middle East. The European markets were down and the U.S. bourses were mixed and little changed and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

The Hang Seng finished sharply higher on Wednesday following gains from the financial shares, insurance companies, property stocks, oil companies and technology issues.

For the day, the index rallied 432.06 points or 1.68 percent to finish at 26,111.84 after trading between 25,811.46 and 26,132.94.

Among the actives, AIA climbed 2.16 percent, while Alibaba Group accelerated 3.24 percent, Baidu tumbled 2.76 percent, Bank of China gained 1.17 percent, BOC Hong Kong picked up 0.92 percent, China Construction Bank collected 1.12 percent, China Life Insurance surged 5.14 percent, China Merchants Bank plummeted 4.23 percent, China Mobile gathered 0.95 percent, China Petroleum & Chemical vaulted 2.40 percent, China Shenhua Energy expanded 2.28 percent, CITIC improved 1.63 percent, CNOOC increased 1.38 percent, Hong Kong Exchange jumped 2.99 percent, HSBC was up 0.28 percent, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China escalated 0.56 percent, JD.com advanced 1.91 percent, Meituan spiked 3.55 percent, NetEase added 1.27 percent, Nongfu Spring soared 3.61 percent, PetroChina strengthened 2.66 percent, Ping An Insurance skyrocketed 6.08 percent, Semiconductor Manufacturing sank 0.36 percent, Sun Hung Kai Properties elevated 2.19 percent, Tencent Holdings rose 1.14 percent, Xiaomi Corporation perked 0.74 percent, WuXi AppTec plunged 3.70 percent and Zijin Mining rallied 3.11 percent.

The lead from Wall Street is uninspired as the major averages opened lower on Wednesday and hugged the line for most of the day, finally ending mixed.

The Dow dropped 280.12 points or 0.57 percent to finish at 48,861.81, while the NASDAQ perked 9.44 points or 0.04 percent to close at 24,673.24 and the S&P 500 eased 2.85 points or 0.04 percent to end at 7,135.95.

The lackluster performance on Wall Street came as traders were reluctant to make significant moves ahead of the release of earnings news after the close from big-name tech companies such as Alphabet (GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN), Meta Platforms (META) and Microsoft (MSFT).

Traders also kept an eye on the Federal Reserve's latest monetary policy announcement, with the central bank announcing its widely expected decision to leave interest rates unchanged in an unusually divided vote.

Crude oil prices surged again on Wednesday as an end to the Middle East war still remains elusive, keeping the blockade on the Strait of Hormuz in place. West Texas Intermediate crude for June delivery was up $6.79 or 6.79 percent at $106.72 per barrel.