Soft Start Seen For Hong Kong Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Hong Kong stock market on Tuesday ended the two-day slide in which it had dropped more than 350 points or 1.4 percent. The Hang Seng now sits just above the 24,550-point plateau although it may open under water again on Wednesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is mixed to lower as sinking oil prices may be offset by interest rate concerns. The European markets were mixed and the U.S. bourses were down and the Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.

The Hang Seng finished modestly higher on Tuesday as gains from the semiconductors and miners were capped by weakness from the oil and energy stocks.

For the day, the index added 109.09 points or 0.44 percent to finish at 24,557.04 after trading between 24,471.50 and 24,675.53.

The lead from Wall Street is soft as the major averages opened under water on Tuesday and stayed that way, although stocks came well off of their daily lows later in the day.

The Dow shed 157.86 points or 0.30 percent to finish at 52,231.89, while the NASDAQ sank 187.26 points or 0.74 percent to end at 25,065.88 and the S&P 500 lost 29.01 points or 0.38 percent to close at 7,520.93.

The weakness on Wall Street followed the release of closely watched Labor Department data showing that consumer prices increased 0.4 percent in October, more than the 0.3 percent that was expected.

The hotter-than-expected inflation data led to renewed concerns about the outlook for interest rates ahead of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy meeting next month. CME Group's FedWatch Tool currently suggests an 85.9 percent chance the Fed will raise rates by a quarter-point at its December meeting.

Stocks came off their daily lows later in the day thanks to continued downward pressure on crude oil prices - which tumbled again as concerns of U.S.-Iran re-escalation faded after U.S. President Donald Trump agreed to maintain a status quo in the U.S.-Iran crisis. West Texas Intermediate crude for December delivery was down $0.97 or 1.12 percent at $85.88 per barrel.