Hong Kong Shares Tipped To Open In The Green On Thursday

(RTTNews) - The Hong Kong stock market returned from the Lunar New Year break on Wednesday by snapping the three-session losing streak in which it had clumped more than 380 points or 2.5 percent. The Hang Seng Index now rests just beneath the 15,880-point plateau and it's expected to open to the upside again on Thursday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is broadly positive, with selling in the previous session deemed to be seriously overdone. The European and U.S. markets were up and the Asian markets figure to open in similar fashion.

The Hang Seng finished modestly higher on Wednesday following gains from the financials and technology stocks, while the property sector was soft.

For the day, the index rallied 132.80 points or 0.84 percent to finish at 15,879.38 after trading between 15,456.32 and 15,911.05.

Among the actives, Alibaba Group strengthened 2.16 percent, while Alibaba Health Info added 0.64 percent, ANTA Sports rallied 2.48 percent, China Life Insurance improved 1.19 percent, China Mengniu Dairy slumped 0.66 percent, China Resources Land rose 0.43 percent, CITIC climbed 1,98 percent, CNOOC perked 0.28 percent, Country Garden surged 5.47 percent, CSPC Pharmaceutical jumped 2.22 percent, ENN Energy plunged 2.09 percent, Galaxy Entertainment spiked 3.50 percent, Hang Lung Properties tumbled 1.32 percent, Henderson Land sank 0.48 percent, Hong Kong & China Gas gathered 0.35 percent, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China collected 0.78 percent, JD.com soared 3.54 percent, Lenovo gained 0.49 percent, Li Ning accelerated 2.90 percent, Meituan skyrocketed 5.65 percent, New World Development eased 0.11 percent, Techtronic Industries advanced 1.87 percent, Xiaomi Corporation increased 0.96 percent and WuXi Biologics plummeted 9.24 percent.

The lead from Wall Street is upbeat as the major averages opened higher on Wednesday and largely remained that way, ending near session highs.

The Dow jumped 151.52 points or 0.40 percent to finish at 38,424.27, while the NASDAQ rallied 203.55 points or 1.30 percent to end at 15,859.15 and the S&P 500 advanced 47.45 points or 0.96 percent to close at 5,000.62.

The rebound on Wall Street reflected bargain hunting, with traders seeing Tuesday's sharp pullback as a buying opportunity amid ongoing optimism about the outlook for the markets.

While Tuesday's hotter-than-expected inflation data further pushed back interest rate cut hopes, signs of continued strength in the economy are still expected to benefit the markets long term.

The Federal Reserve is also still likely to begin lower interest rates sometime in the coming months, even if traders have to wait until June.

Oil futures settled lower on Wednesday, snapping a seven-day winning streak after data showed a big increase in crude inventories in the U.S. last week. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for March ended down $1.23 or about 1.6 percent at $76.64 a barrel.