China Shares May See Continued Selling Pressure

(RTTNews) - The China stock market has tracked lower in back-to-back sessions, sinking almost 60 points or 2 percent along the way. The Shanghai Composite Index now sits just above the 2,970-point plateau and it may take further damage on Wednesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets offers little clarity ahead of key U.S. employment data later this week. The European and U.S. markets were mixed and little changed and the Asian bourses figure to follow suit.

The SCI finished sharply lower on Tuesday with damage across the board, especially among the financials, properties and resource stocks.

For the day, the index tumbled 50.62 points or 1.67 percent to finish at the daily low of 2,972.30 after peaking at 3,017.01. The Shenzhen Composite Index dropped 36.62 points or 1.95 percent to end at 1,845.03.

Among the actives, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China dropped 0.83 percent, while Bank of China shed 0.50 percent, China Construction Bank sank 0.93 percent, China Merchants Bank tanked 2.03 percent, Bank of Communications lost 0.52 percent, China Life Insurance tumbled 2.89 percent, Jiangxi Copper plunged 2.90 percent, Aluminum Corp of China (Chalco) surrendered 2.55 percent, Yankuang Energy plummeted 3.02 percent, PetroChina stumbled 1.94 percent, China Petroleum and Chemical (Sinopec) retreated 1.82 percent, Huaneng Power fell 0.52 percent, China Shenhua Energy declined 1.51 percent, Gemdale slumped 2.93 percent, Poly Developments weakened 3.01 percent and China Vanke was down 3.49 percent.

The lead from Wall Street is again inconsistent as the major averages opened lower on Tuesday. The NASDAQ quickly broke into the green and ended positive, but the Dow and S&P stayed in the red.

The Dow shed 79.88 points or 0.22 percent to finish at 36,124.56, while the NASDAQ gained 44.42 points or 0.31 percent to close at 14,229.91 and the S&P 500 fell 2.60 points or 0.06 percent to end at 4,567.18.

The initial weakness on Wall Street came as traders continued to cash in on recent strength in the markets amid concerns optimism about the outlook for interest rates has led to overbought conditions.

While the Federal Reserve is widely expected to leave interest rates unchanged in the coming months, traders may need more evidence to solidify hopes of a rate cut in the near future.

The subsequent rebound came as a Labor Department report may have reinforced those hopes, showing a bigger than expected decrease in U.S. job openings in October.

Oil prices dropped on Tuesday for a fourth straight session, on lingering concerns about the outlook for demand and on disappointment over the small size of additional output cuts announced by OPEC. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for January ended down $0.72 or 1 percent at $72.32 a barrel.