Mild Upside Seen For Hong Kong Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Hong Kong stock market turned lower again on Friday, one day after ending the two-day losing streak in which it had slumped more than 250 points or 1.2 percent. The Hang Seng Index now sits just above the 19,970-point plateau although it may bounce higher again on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets suggests little movement ahead of the FOMC meeting later this week. The European and U.S. markets mostly saw slight weakness and the Asian markets figure to follow that lead.

The Hang Seng finished sharply lower on Friday with damage across the board, especially among the property and technology companies.

For the day, the index plunged 425/96 points or 2.09 percent to finish at 19,971.24 after trading between 19,927.27 and 20,238.21.

Among the actives, Alibaba Group dropped 2.56 percent, while Alibaba Health Info tumbled 3.98 percent, ANTA Sports slumped 3.61 percent, China Life Insurance plunged 4.62 percent, China Mengniu Dairy surrendered 3.74 percent, China Resources Land shed 2.29 percent, CITIC lost 2.20 percent, CNOOC dipped 1.67 percent, CSPC Pharmaceutical tanked 4.19 percent, Galaxy Entertainment slid 1.91 percent, Haier Smart Home skidded 3.37 percent, Hang Lung Properties plummeted 4.26 percent, Henderson Land slipped 1.60 percent, Hong Kong & China Gas eased 0.33 percent, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China gave away 1.24 percent, JD.com sank 2.30 percent, Lenovo retreated 3.69 percent, Li Auto plummeted 4.92 percent, Li Ning declined 3.63 percent, Meituan tumbled 3.73 percent, New World Development tanked 4.59 percent, Nongfu Spring plunged 4.76 percent, Techtronic Industries added 0.19 percent, Xiaomi Corporation was down 0.79 percent and WuXi Biologics fell 1.98 percent.

The lead from Wall Street suggests mild downside as the major averages opened higher on Friday but quickly slipped under water and largely stayed that way, although the NASDAQ broke back into positive territory later in the day.

The Dow shed 86.04 points or 0.20 percent to finish at 43,828.06, while the NASDAQ rose 23.92 points or 0.12 percent to close at 19,926.72 and the S&P 500 eased 0.16 points or 0.00 percent to end at 6,051.09.

For the week, the NASDAQ rose 0.3 percent, the S&P 500 slid 0.6 percent and the narrower Dow tumbled 1.8 percent.

The early strength on Wall Street partly reflected a positive reaction to earnings news from Broadcom (AVGO), which reported better than expected fiscal fourth quarter earnings and said it expects continued strong demand for its custom AI chips.

Buying interest waned shortly after the start of trading, however, as traders looked ahead to this week's Federal Reserve meeting. The Fed is widely expected to lower interest rates by another 25 basis points, although traders are likely to pay close attention to the accompanying statement for clues about future rate cuts.

Oil futures settled higher on Friday as supply worries resurfaced following additional sanctions on Iran and Russia. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for January closed up $1.27 or about 1.8 percent at $71.29 a barrel.