Hong Kong Bourse May Spin Its Wheels On Friday

(RTTNews) - The Hong Kong stock market has moved higher in three consecutive sessions, accelerating almost 750 points or 3.5 percent along the way. The Hang Seng Index now sits just above the 23,900-point plateau although it's likely to be stuck in neutral on Friday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets suggests caution ahead of key U.S. employment data later in the day. The European markets were mixed and the U.S. bourses were slightly lower and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

The Hang Seng finished sharply higher on Thursday following gains from the financial shares, oil companies, properties and technology stocks.

For the day, the index jumped 252.94 points or 1.07 percent to finish at 23,906.97 after trading between 23,732.31 and 23,911.14.

Among the actives, Alibaba Group spiked 3.23 percent, while Alibaba Health Info climbed 1.54 percent, ANTA Sports rose 0.78 percent, China Life Insurance rallied 2.20 percent, China Mengniu Dairy advanced 1.22 percent, China Resources Land surged 3.56 percent, CITIC strengthened 1.79 percent, CNOOC was up 0.22 percent, CSPC Pharmaceutical stumbled 2.36 percent, ENN Energy sank 0.61 percent, Galaxy Entertainment added 1.20 percent, Hang Lung Properties soared 3.39 percent, Henderson Land skyrocketed 4.52 percent, Hong Kong & China Gas gained 1.15 percent, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China collected 1.37 percent, JD.com increased 1.48 percent, Lenovo jumped 2.13 percent, Li Auto perked 0.34 percent, Li Ning gathered 0.39 percent, Meituan accelerated 2.63 percent, New World Development expanded 1.10 percent, Nongfu Spring dipped 0.13 percent, Techtronic Industries retreated 1.24 percent, Xiaomi Corporation improved 1.50 percent, WuXi Biologics slumped 1.19 percent and Haier Smart Home was unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is negative as the major averages opened mixed but spent most of the day bouncing back and forth across the unchanged line before finishing modestly under water.

The Dow dropped 108.00 points or 0.25 percent to finish at 42,319.74, while the NASDAQ stumbled 162.04 points or 0.83 percent to close at 19,298.45 and the S&P 500 sank 31.51 points or 0.53 percent to end at 5,939.30.

Stocks saw some strength earlier in the day after President Donald Trump confirmed in a post on Truth Social that he had an approximately 90-minute phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

However, traders seemed reluctant to make more significant moves ahead of the release of the Labor Department's closely watched monthly jobs report on Friday.

The data could have a significant impact on the outlook for the economy following Wednesday's weaker than expected reports on private sector employment and service sector activity.

In the bond market, treasuries pulled into negative territory after seeing early strength. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, rose 2.9 basis points to 4.394 percent, after hitting a nearly one-month intraday low of 4.318 percent.