March 12, 2015

Hong Kong Market May Stop The Bleeding On Thursday

The Hong Kong stock market has tracked to the downside in three consecutive trading days, giving away almost 1,180 points or 5 percent in that span. The Hang Seng Index settled just below the 23,720-point plateau, and now the market may finally find traction on Thursday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is mixed, with bargain hunting likely for some of the oversold bourses — although the upside is likely to be capped by ongoing concerns over the debt situation in Greece. The European markets were sharply higher and the U.S. bourses were slightly lower — and the Asian markets are tipped to open flat to slightly higher.

The Hang Seng finished modestly lower again on Wednesday following losses from the oil companies, financial shares and casinos.

For the day, the index lost 179.01 points or 0.75 percent to finish at 23,717.97 after trading between 23,703.84 and 23,899.86 on turnover of 78.26 billion Hong Kong dollars.

Among the actives, HSBC dropped 1.71 percent, while Hang Seng Bank lost 0.94 percent, Hutchison Whampoa climbed 1.90 percent, Henderson Land gained 1.08 percent, Sino Land fell 1.00 percent, Galaxy Entertainment plummeted 3.42 percent, PetroChina lost 1.33 percent, CNOOC tumbled 2.08 percent, China Mobile retreated 1.90 percent and China Shenhua Energy tumbled 3.79 percent.

The lead from Wall Street is slightly negative as stocks showed a lack of direction on Wednesday after failing to sustain an early upward move. The major averages bounced back and forth across the unchanged before ending the session modestly lower.

The Dow slipped 27.55 points or 0.2 percent to 17,635.39, while the NASDAQ edged down 9.85 points or 0.2 percent to 4,849.94 and the S&P 500 dipped 3.92 points or 0.2 percent to 2,040.24.

Bargain hunting contributed to the early strength, but traders seemed reluctant to get back into the markets ahead of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy meeting next week.

While the Fed is not expected to raise interest rates at the meeting, recent upbeat jobs data may lead the central bank to signal that a rate hike is on the horizon.

Continued strength in the value of the U.S. dollar and uncertainty about the situation in Greece also helped to limit the upside for the markets.

by RTT Staff Writer

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