Hong Kong Shares May Open Under Pressure On Wednesday

(RTTNews) - The Hong Kong stock market on Tuesday snapped the three-day losing streak in which it had dropped more than 330 points or 1.4 percent. The Hang Seng Index now sits just shy of the 24,150-point plateau although it may hand back some of those gains on Wednesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is cloudy on lingering concerns over U.S. trade policy. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourses were mixed and flat and the Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.

The Hang Seng finished sharply higher on Tuesday following gains from the financial shares and technology stocks, while the property sector was soft.

For the day, the index jumped 260.24 points or 1.09 percent to finish at 24,148.07 after trading between 23,899.60 and 24,159.01.

Among the actives, Alibaba Group advanced 1.52 percent, while Alibaba Health Info increased 0.95 percent, ANTA Sports slipped 0.33 percent, China Life Insurance collected 0.55 percent, China Mengniu Dairy tanked 1.50 percent, China Resources Land slumped 0.88 percent, CITIC soared 2.63 percent, CNOOC added 0.66 percent, CSPC Pharmaceutical and Nongfu Spring both lost 0.38 percent, ENN Energy Holdings sank 0.62 percent, Galaxy Entertainment strengthened 1.87 percent, Haier Smart Home dropped 0.63 percent, Hang Lung Properties gained 0.39 percent, Henderson Land stumbled 2.07 percent, Hong Kong & China Gas shed 0.45 percent, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China rose 0.33 percent, JD.com accelerated 2.32 percent, Lenovo jumped 1.99 percent, Li Auto eased 0.09 percent, Li Ning improved 1.08 percent, Meituan surged 2.69 percent, New World Development fell 0.36 percent, Techtronic Industries climbed 1.53 percent, Xiaomi Corporation rallied 2.36 percent and WuXi Biologics spiked 2.59 percent.

The lead from Wall Street offers little clarity as the major averages spent most of Tuesday's trade hugging the line, finally ending mixed and little changed.

The Dow shed 165.60 points or 0.37 percent to finish at 44,240.76, while the NASDAQ rose 5.95 points or 0.03 percent to close at 20,418.46 and the S&P 500 dipped 4.46 points or 0.07 percent to end at 6,225.52.

The choppy trading on Wall Street came as investors were reluctant to make significant moves amid lingering uncertainty about President Donald Trump's erratic trade policies.

A lack of major U.S. economic data may also have kept some traders on the sidelines ahead of the release of the minutes of the Federal Reserve's latest monetary policy meeting on Wednesday.

The Fed minutes may shed light on the outlook for interest rates ahead of the central bank's next meeting on July 29-30. CME Group's FedWatch Tool is currently indicating a 95.3 percent chance the Fed will leave rates unchanged this month.

Crude oil prices moved higher on Tuesday on concerns over disruptions to the oil supply lines due to Houthi attacks. West Texas Intermediate crude for August delivery closed up by $0.40 at $68.33 per barrel.