Hong Kong Stock Market May Spin Its Wheels On Monday

(RTTNews) - The Hong Kong stock market on Friday halted the three-day slide in which it had slumped more than 480 points or 2.7 percent. The Hang Seng Index now sits just above the 19,075-point plateau although it may be stuck in neutral on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is mixed and flat ahead of this week's rate decision from the FOMC. The European and U.S. markets were mixed and little changed and the Asian bourses figure to follow that lead.

The Hang Seng finished modestly higher on Friday following gains from the financials, properties and technology stocks.

For the day, the index jumped 147.26 points or 0.78 percent to finish at 19,075.26 after trading between 18,886.43 and 19,169.75.

Among the actives, Alibaba Group spiked 2.01 percent, while Alibaba Health Info soared 2.02 percent, ANTA Sports climbed 1.57 percent, China Life Insurance and Hang Lung Properties both were up 0.35 percent, China Mengniu Dairy shed 0.36 percent, China Resources Land lost 0.31 percent, CITIC surged 2.12 percent, CNOOC fell 0.16 percent, Country Garden plummeted 2.49 percent, CSPC Pharmaceutical gained 0.64 percent, Galaxy Entertainment rose 0.37 percent, Henderson Land improved 0.65 percent, Hong Kong & China Gas dropped 0.77 percent, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China collected 1.39 percent, JD.com strengthened 1.61 percent, Lenovo jumped 1.77 percent, Li Ning sank 0.74 percent, Meituan advanced 1.18 percent, New World Development and Hengan International both added 0.66 percent, Techtronic Industries tumbled 2.16 percent, Xiaomi Corporation rallied 1.99 percent and WuXi Biologics increased 0.62 percent.

The lead from Wall Street offers little guidance as the major averages opened higher on Friday but faded as the day progressed, ending mixed and little changed.

The Dow added 2.49 points or 0.01 percent to finish at 35,227.69, while the NASDAQ lost 30.49 points or 0.22 percent to close at 14,032.81 and the S&P 500 rose 1.47 points or 0.03 percent to end at 4,536.34.

With the uptick, the Dow closed higher for the 10th straight session and surged 2.1 percent for the week. The S&P 500 also climbed 0.7 percent for the week, while the NASDAQ fell 0.6 percent.

The choppy trading on Wall Street came as traders seemed reluctant to make significant moves ahead of the Federal Reserve's highly anticipated monetary policy meeting this week.

With the Fed widely expected to raise interest rates by another 25 basis point, traders are likely to pay close attention to the accompanying statement for clues about the outlook for rates.

Oil futures settled higher on Friday, lifted by data showing a drop in U.S. crude inventories and recent announcements by Saudi Arabia and Russia about crude output reductions. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for September rose $1.42 or 1.9 percent at 77.07 a barrel. WTI Crude futures gained 2.3 percent in the week.