Lower Open Anticipated For Hong Kong Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Hong Kong stock market on Monday halted the four-day losing streak in which it had plummeted almost 1,300 points or 6.4 percent. The Hang Seng Index now sits just beneath the 19,700-point plateau although it may hand back those gains on Tuesday. The global forecast for the Asian markets is mixed to lower on continuing fears of a financial crisis. The European markets were sharply lower and the U.S. bourses were mixed and little changed and the Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.

The Hang Seng finished sharply higher on Monday following gains from the financials and oil companies and mixed performances from the technology and property stocks.

For the day, the index surged 376.05 points or 1.95 percent to finish at 19,695.97 after trading between 19,390.38 and 19,791.64. Among the actives, Alibaba Group accelerated 2.59 percent, while Alibaba Health Info soared 2.97 percent, ANTA Sports rallied 2.58 percent, China Life Insurance collected 1.54 percent, China Mengniu Dairy climbed 1.96 percent, China Resources Land dipped 0.14 percent, CITIC increased 1.48 percent, CNOOC skyrocketed 5.96 percent, Country Garden tumbled 2.69 percent, CSPC Pharmaceutical lost 0.26 percent, Galaxy Entertainment surged 3.05 percent, Hang Lung Properties sank 0.41 percent, Henderson Land gained 1.09 percent, Hong Kong & China Gas was up 0.14 percent, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China jumped 2.46 percent, JD.com rose 0.19 percent, Lenovo strengthened 2.33 percent, Li Ning spiked 2.82 percent, Meituan added 1.26 percent, New World Development improved 2.32 percent, Techtronic Industries eased 0.12 percent, Xiaomi Corporation advanced 1.58 percent and WuXi Biologics plummeted 3.46 percent. The lead from Wall Street offers little clarity as the major averages spent most of Monday bouncing back and forth across the unchanged line before finally ending mixed and little changed.

The Dow dropped 90.50 points or 0.28 percent to finish at 31,819.14, while the NASDAQ added 49.96 points or 0.45 percent to close at 11,188.84 and the S&P 500 dipped 5.83 points or 0.15 percent to end at 3,855.76.

The weakness that emerged on Wall Street came on continued concerns over the fallout from the Silicon Valley Bank collapse - which triggered heavy selling, particularly in the banking sector.

Over the weekend, the U.S. Treasury, Federal Reserve, and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said they would "fully protect" depositors, including those with assets above the federally guaranteed $250,000 limit, but traders were not reassured.

Investors are also nervous ahead of the ECB meeting and key inflation data due out later this week.

Crude oil prices fell sharply on Monday amid worries that a U.S. banking debacle may follow last week's collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures settled lower by $1.88 or 2.4 percent at $74.80 a barrel.