Soft Start Anticipated For Hong Kong Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Hong Kong stock market has moved higher in two straight sessions, accelerating more than 500 points or 3 percent along the way. The Hang Seng Index now sits just beneath the 16,800-point plateau although it may hand back some of those gains on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is mixed amid a lack of catalysts, with optimism over the outlook for interest rates preventing any heavy selling. The European and U.S. bourses were mixed and little changed and the Asian markets are expected to follow suit.

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

For the day, the index surged 389.99 points or 2.38 percent to finish at 16,792.19 after trading between 16,610.70 and 16,964.33.

Among the actives, Alibaba Group spiked 3.69 percent, while Alibaba Health Info and CNOOC both increased 2.34 percent, ANTA Sports jumped 3.38 percent, China Life Insurance collected 2.06 percent, China Mengniu Dairy advanced 2.84 percent, China Resources Land surged 5.85 percent, CITIC soared 4.50 percent, Country Garden rallied 3.56 percent, CSPC Pharmaceutical gained 2.17 percent, Galaxy Entertainment added 2.29 percent, Hang Lung Properties lost 0.55 percent, Henderson Land improved 2.39 percent, Hong Kong & China Gas climbed 3.01 percent, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China perked 0.54 percent, JD.com skyrocketed 6.98 percent, Lenovo sank 0.58 percent, Li Ning fell 0.52 percent, Meituan accelerated 3.91 percent, New World Development strengthened 3.12 percent, Techtronic Industries gathered 1.78 percent, Xiaomi Corporation was up 0.13 percent and WuXi Biologics rose 1.90 percent.

The lead from Wall Street offers little clarity as the major averages opened mixed on Friday and finished the same way, little changed.

The Dow added 56.76 points or 0.15 percent to finish at 37,305.16, while the NASDAQ gained 52.32 points or 0.35 percent to close at 14,813.92 and the S&P 500 eased 0.36 points or 0.01 percent to end at 4,719.19.

The major averages all closed higher for the seventh consecutive week. The Dow and the NASDAQ both surged by 2.9 percent, while the S&P 500 jumped by 2.5 percent.

The choppy trading on Wall Street came as traders took a breather following the recent upward move by the markets, although optimism about the outlook for interest rates continued to support the markets.

On the U.S. economic front, the Federal Reserve released a report showing a modest rebound in U.S. industrial production in November.

Oil futures posted their first weekly gain in two months despite settling on a slightly weak note on Friday. An upward revision in oil demand forecast by the International Energy Agency and a weak dollar pushed up crude oil prices over the past few sessions. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for January eased $0.15 at $71.43 a barrel on Friday but added 0.2% for the week.