Soft Start Likely For Hong Kong Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Hong Kong stock market has moved lower in four straight sessions, slumping almost 675 points or 3.4 percent along the way. The Hang Seng Index now sits just above the 19,625-point plateau and it's got a weak lead again for Monday's trade.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is mixed to lower on concerns over recession and the debt ceiling. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourses were down and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

The Hang Seng finished modestly lower on Friday following losses from the financial shares, property stocks and technology companies.

For the day, the index lost 116.56 points or 0.59 percent to finish at 19,627.24 after trading between 19,596.49 and 19,853.37.

Among the actives, Alibaba Group soared 2.42 percent, while Alibaba Health Info lost 1.17 percent, ANTA Sports advanced 0.89 percent, China Life Insurance plunged 2.65 percent, China Mengniu Dairy skidded 1.57 percent, China Resources Land fell 1.16 percent, CITIC retreated 1.77 percent, CNOOC dropped 1.56 percent, Country Garden plummeted 3.17 percent, CSPC Pharmaceutical and Li Ning both were down 0.39 percent, Galaxy Entertainment slid 0.97 percent, Hang Lung Properties surrendered 2.11 percent, Henderson Land weakened 1.63 percent, Hong Kong & China Gas tanked 2.22 percent, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China tumbled 2.04 percent, JD.com skyrocketed 7.26 percent, Lenovo slumped 1.69 percent, Meituan surged 2.57 percent, New World Development sank 1.47 percent, Techtronic Industries stumbled 1.93 percent, Xiaomi Corporation declined 1.78 percent and WuXi Biologics shed 1.18 percent.

The lead from Wall Street is soft as the major averages opened higher on Friday but quickly turned lower, spending the rest of the session in the red and finishing with mild losses.

The Dow dipped 8.88 points or 0.03 percent to finish at 33,300.62, while the NASDAQ sank 43.76 points or 0.35 percent to end at 12,284.74 and the S&P 500 eased 6.54 points or 0.16 percent to close at 4,124.08.

For the week, the Dow slumped 1.1 percent, the S&P fell 0.3 percent and but the NASDAQ rose 0.4 percent.

The early downturn on Wall Street followed the release of a report from the University of Michigan showing U.S. consumer sentiment deteriorated much more than anticipated in May.

Worries about the debt ceiling crisis also continued to hang over the markets, with the postponement of a meeting between President Joe Biden and top lawmakers adding to jitters about a potential default.

Crude oil prices fell Friday on the dollar's strength and worries about the outlook for energy demand. Fears of the U.S. falling into a recession and the impasse in debt ceiling talks boosted dollar's safe-haven appeal and hurt oil prices. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures fell $0.83 or 1.2 percent at $70.04 a barrel.