Rally May Stall For Hong Kong Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Hong Kong stock market has moved higher in three straight sessions, gathering more than 200 points or 0.9 percent along the way. The Hang Seng Index now sits just above the 20,700-point plateau although it may be stuck in neutral on Wednesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets offers little clarity, although technology shares may provide a slight boost. The European markets were down and the U.S. bourses were mixed and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

The Hang Seng finished modestly higher on Tuesday following gains from the insurance companies, weakness from the properties and a mixed picture from the technology stocks.

For the day, the index added 101.78 points or 0.49 percent to finish at 20,701.14 after trading between 20,563.74 and 20,890.08.

Among the actives, Alibaba Group climbed 0.93 percent, while Alibaba Health Info added 0.50 percent, ANTA Sports lost 0.63 percent, China Life Insurance rallied 1.08 percent, China Mengniu Dairy skidded 1.05 percent, China Resources Land and Henderson Land both stumbled 1.56 percent, CITIC fell 0.54 percent, CNOOC declined 1.50 percent, CSPC Pharmaceutical and Hong Kong & China Gas both gained 0.16 percent, Galaxy Entertainment rose 0.14 percent, Hang Lung Properties dropped 0.90 percent, JD.com surged 2.72 percent, Lenovo slumped 1.10 percent, Li Auto shed 0.71 percent, Meituan soared 2.21 percent, New World Development sank 0.73 percent, Nongfu Spring retreated 1.85 percent, Techtronic Industries advanced 0.79 percent, Xiaomi Corporation jumped 1.37 percent, WuXi Biologics tumbled 1.95 percent and Haier Smart Home, Li Ning and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is murky as the major averages opened lower on Tuesday and largely hugged the line before ending mixed.

The Dow slumped 154.52 points or 0.36 percent to finish at 42,233.05, while the NASDAQ jumped 145.56 points or 0.78 percent to close at a record 18,712.75 and the S&P 500 rose 9.40 points or 0.16 percent to end at 5,832.92.

The climb by the NASDAQ came ahead of the release of earnings news from big-name tech companies, including with Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Meta Platforms (META), Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN) and Apple (AAPL).

Semiconductor stocks showed a particularly strong move to the upside, driving the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index up by 2.3 percent.

In U.S. economic news, the Conference Board noted a substantial improvement by U.S. consumer confidence in October. Also, the Labor Department said job openings in the U.S. fell to 7.44 million in September from a downwardly revised 7.86 million in August.

Oil futures settled lower again on Tuesday amid concerns crude supplies will far exceed near term demand. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for December ended down $0.17 or about 0.25 percent at $67.21 a barrel.