China Stock Market May See Soft Start On Wednesday

(RTTNews) - The China stock market has alternated between positive and negative finishes through the last four days since the end of the two-day winning streak in which it had picked up almost a dozen points or 0.4 percent. The Shanghai Composite Index now rests just shy of the 3,150-point plateau although it's expected to open under pressure again on Wednesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is mixed with little change ahead of key economic events that are likely to affect the outlook for interest rates. The European and U.S. markets were mixed and flat and the Asian bourses figure to follow suit.

The SCI finished sharply higher on Tuesday following huge gains from the property sector and more measured upside from the financials and oil companies.

For the day, the index soared 71.20 points or 2.31 percent to finish at 3,149.75 after trading between 3,096.11 and 3,152.00.

Among the actives, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China strengthened 1.89 percent, while Bank of China advanced 0.96 percent, China Construction Bank jumped 2.19 percent, China Merchants Bank skyrocketed 9.07 percent, Bank of Communications collected 0.85 percent, China Life Insurance surged 7.22 percent, Jiangxi Copper improved 1.64 percent, Aluminum Corp of China (Chalco) accelerated 2.71 percent, Yankuang Energy gained 1.48 percent, PetroChina rallied 1.57 percent, China Petroleum and Chemical (Sinopec) added 0.90 percent, Huaneng Power plummeted 6.39 percent, China Shenhua Energy lost 0.40 percent and Gemdale, Poly Developments, China Vanke and China Fortune Land all spiked by the 10 percent daily limit.

The lead from Wall Street suggests a mild negative bias as the major averages opened higher, tumbled mid-session but then bounced back to finish mixed and little changed.

The Dow added 3.07 points or 0.01 percent to finish at 33,852.53, while the NASDAQ lost 65.72 points or 0.59 percent to end at 10,983.78 and the S&P 500 dipped 6.31 points or 0.16 percent to close at 3,957.63.

The choppy trading on Wall Street came amid lingering uncertainty about the situation in China following widespread protests over the country's Covid restrictions.

Traders may also have been reluctant to make significant moves ahead of remarks from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell later today, which may offer additional clues about the outlook for interest rates. Jobless data follows on Friday.

In economic news, the Conference Board released a report showing a modest decrease in U.S. consumer confidence in November.

Crude oil futures settled higher Tuesday, extending gains from the previous session on hopes that OPEC may trim production to support prices later this week. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for January ended higher by $$0.96 or 1.2 percent at $78.20 a barrel.

Closer to home, China's National Bureau of Statistics will release November results from its manufacturing PMI later this morning. In October, the manufacturing PMI had a score of 49.2, the non-manufacturing PMI was at 48.7 and the composite was at 49.0.