Soft Start Anticipated For Hong Kong Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Hong Kong stock market on Friday wrote a finish to the two-day slide in which it had slumped more than 400 points or 2 percent. The Hang Seng now sits just above the 20,060-point plateau although it may hand back some of those gains on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is cautious ahead of the FOMC meeting later this week. The European and U.S. markets were mostly lower and the Asian bourses are expected to follow that lead.

The Hang Seng finished sharply higher on Friday with gains across the board, especially among the oil, finance, property and technology sectors.

For the day, the index rallied 365.63 points or 1.86 percent to finish at 20,066.19 after trading between 19,768.13 and 20,144.00.

Among the actives, Alibaba Group gained 2.23 percent, while Alibaba Health Info added 2.40 percent, ANTA Sports accelerated 3.82 percent, China Life Insurance spiked 3.13 percent, China Mengniu Dairy increased 0.78 percent, China Resources Land collected 1.75 percent, CITIC was up 1.26 percent, CNOOC dropped 0.86 percent, CSPC Pharmaceutical picked up 1.14 percent, ENN Energy tumbled 3.24 percent, Galaxy Entertainment and Li Auto both climbed 2.75 percent, Haier Smart Home perked 1.60 percent, Hang Lung Properties slumped 2.62 percent, Henderson Land gained 0.23 percent, Hong Kong & China Gas added 0.34 percent, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China advanced 2.74 percent, JD.com jumped 2.98 percent, Lenovo strengthened 2.93 percent, Li Ning gathered 1.80 percent, Meituan sank 0.73 percent, New World Development improved 2.71 percent, Nongfu Spring rallied 3.08 percent, Techtronic Industries increased 2.43 percent, Xiaomi Corporation skyrocketed 6.81 percent and WuXi Biologics surged 3.87 percent.

The lead from Wall Street is soft as the major averages opened barely higher on Friday but quickly turned lower and spent the balance of the session in the red.

The Dow stumbled 140.85 points or 0.32 percent to finish at 44,424.25, while the NASDAQ sank 99.40 points or 0.50 percent to close at 19,954.30 and the S&P 500 fell 17.47 points or 0.29 percent to end at 6,101.24. For the holiday-shortened week, the Dow surged 2.2 percent and the NASDAQ and S&P 500 both jumped 1.7 percent.

The weakness that emerged on Wall Street reflected concerns about the outlook for interest rates ahead of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy meeting this week.

Recent economic data has led to concerns about the Fed leaving rates on hold for a prolonged period, but many economists still expect the central bank to resume cutting rates sometime in the first half of the year.

On U.S. economic front, data from the University of Michigan showed consumer sentiment unexpectedly deteriorated by more than estimated in January. Also, the National Association of Realtors said existing home sales jumped much more than expected in December

Oil futures were roughly flat on Friday, continuing to look for support after the Energy Information Administration said crude oil inventories in the U.S. fell less than expected last week. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for March settled at $74.66 a barrel to snap a six-day losing streak. WTI crude futures lost 3 percent in the week.

Closer to home, Hong Kong will release December data for imports, exports and trade balance later today. In November, imports were up 5.7 percent on month and exports rose 2.1 percent for a trade deficit of HKD43.4 billion.