Soft Start Anticipated For China Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The China stock market bounced higher again on Monday, one session after ending the three-day winning streak in which it had advanced almost 90 points or 2.7 percent. The Shanghai Composite Index now sits just beneath the 3,400-point plateau and it's likely to head south again on Tuesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets suggests little movement ahead of key inflation data later this week. The European and U.S. markets finished mixed and mostly flat and the Asian markets are expected to open in similar fashion.

The SCI finished sharply higher on Monday following gains from the financial shares, resource stocks, oil companies and properties.

For the day, the index jumped 60.50 points or 1.81 percent to finish at 3,395.00 after trading between 3,340.99 and 3,400.18. The Shenzhen Composite Index rose 9.06 points or 0.44 percent to end at 2,046.92.

Among the actives, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China surged 6.21 percent, while Bank of China skyrocketed 10.05 percent, China Construction Bank soared 5.24 percent, China Merchants Bank jumped 2.62 percent, Bank of Communications spiked 4.81 percent, China Life Insurance collected 1.82 percent, Jiangxi Copper improved 3.28 percent, Aluminum Corp of China (Chalco) strengthened 3.32 percent, Yankuang Energy rallied 4.39 percent, PetroChina surged 7.65 percent, China Petroleum and Chemical (Sinopec) accelerated 4.55 percent, Huaneng Power and Beijing Capital Development both dropped 0.89 percent, China Shenhua Energy soared 6.16 percent, Poly Developments climbed 1.89 percent, China Vanke rose 0.26 percent and China Fortune Land and Gemdale were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street offers little guidance as the major averages opened flat on Monday and spent much of the day in negative territory before finishing mixed and little changed.

The Dow shed 55.69 points or 0.17 percent to finish at 33,618.69, while the NASDAQ added 21.50 points or 0.18 percent to close at 12,256.92 and the S&P 500 perked 1.87 points or 0.05 percent to end at 4,138.12.

The choppy trading on Wall Street came as traders seemed reluctant to make significant moves ahead to the release of key inflation data later in the week.

The reports on consumer and producer price inflation, which are due to be released on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively, could have a significant impact on the outlook for interest rates.

In U.S. economic news, the Commerce Department released a report showing U.S. wholesale inventories were unexpectedly unchanged in March versus expectations for a slight increase.

Crude oil prices climbed higher on Monday amid optimism about the outlook for energy demand thanks to last week's fairly encouraging non-farm payrolls data. West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures for June ended higher by $1.82 or 2.6 percent at $73.16 a barrel.

Closer to home, China will provide April figures for imports, exports and trade balance later today. Imports are expected to sink 5.0 percent on year after easing 1.4 percent in March. Exports are called higher by an annual 8.0 percent, down from 14.8 percent in the previous month. The trade surplus is pegged at $74.30 billion, down from $88.19 billion a month earlier.