Little Movement Expected For China Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The China stock market headed south again on Wednesday, one day after ending the two-day slide in which it had fallen more than 30 points or 1 percent. The Shanghai Composite Index now sits just above the 3,020-point plateau and it's likely to be rangebound again on Thursday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is mixed and flat ahead of key U.S. inflation data later today. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourses were mixed and the Asian markets expect to follow the latter lead.

The SCI finished modestly lower on Wednesday following losses from the property stocks, financial shares and oil companies.

For the day, the index shed 16.87 points or 0.56 percent to finish at 3,021.69 after trading between 3,017.66 and 3,038.98. The Shenzhen Composite Index sank 14.95 points or 0.78 percent to end at 1,889.85.

Among the actives, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China shed 0.42 percent, while Bank of China collected 0.25 percent, China Construction Bank lost 0.47 percent, China Merchants Bank retreated 1.23 percent, Bank of Communications dropped 0.87 percent, China Life Insurance tumbled 1.80 percent, Jiangxi Copper perked 0.11 percent, Aluminum Corp of China (Chalco) sank 0.89 percent, Yankuang Energy advanced 0.93 percent, PetroChina eased 0.14 percent, China Petroleum and Chemical (Sinopec) skidded 1.10 percent, Huaneng Power stumbled 1.47 percent, China Shenhua Energy added 0.58 percent, Gemdale plummeted 4.28 percent, Poly Developments plunged 3.90 percent and China Vanke tanked 2.47 percent.

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

The Dow rose 13.44 points or 0.04 percent to finish at 35,430.42, while the NASDAQ slid 23.27 points or 0.16 percent to close at 14,258.49 and the S&P 500 dipped 4.31 points or 0.09 percent to end at 4,550.58.

Stocks saw early strength amid ongoing optimism about the outlook for interest rates, also riding a surge by shares of General Motors (GM) after the auto giant announced a $10 billion stock buyback and increased dividend.

Buying interest waned as the day has progress, however, with traders looking ahead to the release of key inflation readings later today.

Crude oil showed another strong move to the upside on Wednesday, extending gains from the previous session ahead of a key OPEC meeting later today. West Texas Intermediate for January delivery jumped $1.45 or 1.9 percent to $77.86 a barrel.

Closer to home, China will see November numbers for its manufacturing, non-manufacturing and composite PMIs later this morning; in October, their scores were 49.5, 50.6 and 50.7, respectively.