Little Movement Seen For China Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The China stock market on Thursday ended the three-day slide in which it had dropped almost 60 points or 2.1 percent. The Shanghai Composite Index now sits just beneath the 2,790-point plateau and it's likely to remain in that neighborhood again on Friday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets suggests little movement ahead of key U.S. jobs data later today. The European markets were down and the U.S. bourses were mixed and flat and the Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.

The SCI finished slightly higher on Thursday as gains from the properties and insurance companies were offset by weakness from the banks and resource stocks.

For the day, the index rose 4.04 points or 0.14 percent to finish at 2,788.31 after trading between 2,777.47 and 2,796.02. The Shenzhen Composite Index added 7.98 points or 0.52 percent to end at 1,529.62.

Among the actives, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China retreated 1.40 percent, while Bank of China shed 0.63 percent, China Construction Bank declined 1.37 percent, China Merchants Bank lost 0.51 percent, Agricultural Bank of China fell 0.44 percent, China Life Insurance collected 0.95 percent, Jiangxi Copper sank 0.78 percent, Aluminum Corp of China (Chalco) tanked 2.27 percent, Yankuang Energy slumped 1.40 percent, PetroChina stumbled 1.45 percent, China Petroleum and Chemical (Sinopec) slid 0.61 percent, China Shenhua Energy plunged 2.37 percent, Gemdale rallied 1.31 percent, Poly Developments climbed 1.17 percent, China Vanke soared 2.01 percent and Huaneng Power was unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street remains conflicted as the major averages opened mixed on Thursday and hugged the line for most of the day, finally ending little changed.

The Dow shed 219.22 points or 0.54 percent to finish at 40,755.75, while the NASDAQ added 43.36 points or 0.25 percent to close at 17,127.66 and the S&P 500 sank 16.66 points or 0.30 percent to end at 5,503.41.

The mixed performance on Wall Street followed the release of mixed readings on employment ahead of the release of the Labor Department's closely watched monthly jobs report later today.

Economists expect employment to add 160,000 jobs in August after rising by 114,000 jobs in July. The unemployment rate is expected to ease to 4.2 percent in August from 4.3 percent in July, which was its highest level since October 2021.

Before the start of trading, payroll processor ADP released a report showing private sector employment in the U.S. increased by much less than expected in the month of August.

Crude oil futures settled lower on Thursday due to concerns about the outlook for demand, although the downside was limited by reports that OPEC has postponed plans to boost production next month. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for October ended down by $0.05 at $69.15 a barrel, the lowest settlement in about nine months.