Hong Kong Shares May Open In The Red On Friday

(RTTNews) - The Hong Kong stock market has finished higher in two of three trading days since the end of the two-day slide in which it had given up more than 740 points or 3.5 percent. The Hang Seng Index now sits just above the 23,050-point plateau although it may hand back some of those gains on Friday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is murky, with weakness from the technology shares likely to cap any upside. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourses were mixed and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

The Hang Seng finished modestly higher on Thursday following gains from the insurance, property and resource stocks, while the financials and technology companies were mixed.

For the day, the index improved 174.01 points or 0.76 percent to finish at 23,055.03 after trading between 22,953.70 and 23,335.92.

Among the actives, AIA vaulted 1.89 percent, while Alibaba Group expanded 1.78 percent, Baidu gathered 0.36 percent, Bank of China dropped 0.93 percent, BOC Hong Kong fell 0.19 percent, China Construction Bank perked 0.06 percent, China Life Insurance skyrocketed 5.33 percent, China Merchants Bank picked up 0.21 percent, China Mobile gained 0.46 percent, China Petroleum & Chemical added 0.50 percent, China Shenhua Energy climbed 1.71 percent, CITIC increased 0.75 percent, CNOOC rose 0.39 percent, Hong Kong Exchange advanced 1.27 percent, HSBC collected 1.08 percent, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China eased 0.16 percent, JD.com soared 3.58 percent, Lenovo Group plunged 4.34 percent, Meituan spiked 3.43 percent, NetEase tumbled 1.19 percent, Nongfu Spring strengthened 2.07 percent, PetroChina accelerated 3.18 percent, Ping An Insurance jumped 2.45 percent, Semiconductor Manufacturing cratered 10.07 percent, Sun Hung Kai Properties improved 0.80 percent, Tencent Holdings was up 0.09 percent, Xiaomi Corporation surged 4.44 percent, WuXi AppTec sank 0.59 percent and Zijin Mining rallied 2.85 percent.

The lead from Wall Street offers little clarity as the major averages opened higher on Thursday but slumped after the release of U.S. jobless data; the markers eventually recovered to finish mixed.

The Dow jumped 594.83 points or 1.14 percent to finish at 52,900.07, while the NASDAQ tumbled 207.36 points or 0.80 percent to end at 25,832.67 and the S&P 500 perked 0.01 point or 0.00 percent to close at 7,483.24.

The markets opened slightly higher on Thursday but were clearly waiting on the jobs data. Stocks sank after the Labor Department said employment in the U.S. increased much less than expected in June.

Sentiment eventually turned higher again as the lower-than-expected payrolls data caused markets to tone down fears of an immediate rate hike by the Federal Reserve.

In other U.S. economic news, the Commerce Department reported a steep drop in new orders for U.S. manufactured goods in May, thanks to a sharp pullback in new orders for durable goods. Also, first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits unexpectedly edged lower last week.

Crude oil prices inched higher on Thursday after the U.S. and Iran expressed contradictory remarks over the management of the Strait of Hormuz. West Texas Intermediate crude for August delivery was up $0.05 or 0.07 percent at $68.63 per barrel.