Lower Open Expected For China Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The China stock market on Friday ended the two-day slide in which it had slipped more than 20 points or 0.6 percent. The Shanghai Composite Index now rests just above the 3,045-point plateau although it may see renewed selling pressure again on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is soft, with energy and technology stocks likely to be under pressure. The European markets were mixed and little changed and the U.S. bourses were down and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

The Hang Seng finished modestly higher on Friday following gains from the resource stocks and a mixed picture from the financial shares.

For the day, the index gained 18.62 points or 0.62 percent to finish at 3,046.02 after trading between 3,016.90 and 3,049.19. The Shenzhen Composite Index climbed 18.27 points or 1.07 percent to end at 1,719.71.

Among the actives, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China collected 0.19 percent, while Bank of China lost 0.44 percent, Agricultural Bank of China slid 0.23 percent, China Construction Bank perked 0.14 percent, China Merchants Bank skidded 1.03 percent, Bank of Communications fell 0.31 percent, China Life Insurance dipped 0.24 percent, Jiangxi Copper jumped 1.60 percent, Aluminum Corp of China (Chalco) spiked 2.70 percent, Yankuang Energy tumbled 2.00 percent, PetroChina rallied 1.21 percent, Huaneng Power accelerated 1.83 percent, China Shenhua Energy dropped 0.85 percent, Gemdale shed 0.51 percent, Poly Developments skidded 0.99 percent and China Vanke slumped 0.33 percent.

The lead from Wall Street is negative as the major averages opened higher on Friday but fell into the red shortly thereafter, closing under water.

The Dow dropped 68.71 points or 0.18 percent to finish at 38.722.69, while the NASDAQ tumbled 188.29 points or 1.16 percent to end at 16,085.11 and the S&P 500 sank 33.67 points or 0.65 percent to close at 5,123.69. For the week, the NASDAQ slumped 1.2 percent, the Dow lost 0.9 percent and the S&P eased 0.3 percent.

The early strength on Wall Street came as the Labor Department's closely watched monthly jobs report added to optimism about the outlook for interest rates. While job growth in February came in much stronger than expected, the report also showed notable downward revisions to job growth in the two previous months.

The downward revisions and the unexpected increase in the unemployment rate combined with a slowdown in the annual rate of wage growth has added to optimism the Federal Reserve will begin lowering interest rates in June.

Buying interest remained somewhat subdued, however, as traders seemed reluctant to continue buying stocks ahead of the release of key inflation data this week that could have a more profound impact on the outlook for rates.

Oil prices fell on Friday amid uncertainty about the outlook for demand, particularly from China after data showed a drop in the country's oil imports in the first two months of the year. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for April shed $0.92 or 1.2 percent at $78.01 a barrel. WTI crude futures sank 2.5 percent in the week.