Losing Streak May Continue For Hong Kong Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Hong Kong stock market has finished lower in two straight sessions, sinking more than 250 points or 1 percent along the way. The Hang Seng Index now sits just beneath the 24,990-point plateau and it's tipped to open in the red again on Thursday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is mixed to lower on surging crude oil prices and concerns over the Middle East conflict. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourses were down and the Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.

The Hang Seng finished modestly lower on Wednesday as losses from the properties and technology stocks were mitigated by support among the financial sector.

For the day, the index slumped 239.63 points or 0.95 percent to finish at 24,892.66 after trading between 24,802.06 and 25,040.27.

The lead from Wall Street is soft as the major averages opened lower on Wednesday and bounced up and down throughout the session before ending slightly lower.

The Dow eased 6.06 points or 0.01 percent to finish at 52,218.58, while the NASDAQ slumped 146.30 points or 0.57 percent to end at 25,690.90 and the S&P 500 fell 10.24 points or 0.14 percent to close at 7,498.96.

The choppy trading on Wall Street came as traders seemed reluctant to make significant moves ahead of the release of some key earnings news from tech giants Alphabet (GOOGL), Tesla (TSLA) and IBM Corp. (IBM).

Traders attempted to shrug off an extended rally by the price of crude oil, with U.S. crude oil futures spiking to their highest levels in over a month amid concerns about the escalating conflict between the U.S. and Iran.

Crude oil prices jumped again on Wednesday on supply disruption concerns as the conflict between the U.S. and Iran shows no signs of letting up. West Texas Intermediate crude for September delivery was up $2.62 or 3.11 percent at $86.96 per barrel.