Soft Start Anticipated For Hong Kong Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Hong Kong stock market headed south again on Friday, one session after ending the three-day losing streak in which it had given up almost 550 points or 3 percent. The Hang Seng now sits just beneath the 17,950-point plateau and it's likely to extend its losses on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is soft amid mixed cues for interest rates. The European markets were sharply lower and the U.S. bourses were mixed and little changed and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

The Hang Seng finished sharply lower on Friday following losses from the technology stocks and properties.

For the day, the index tumbled 170.82 points or 0.94 percent to finish at 17,941.78 after trading between 17,927.16 and 18,109.89.

Among the actives, Alibaba Group and Li Ning both surrendered 2.28 percent, while Alibaba Health Info plunged 3.05 percent, ANTA Sports dropped 1.22 percent, China Life Insurance fell 0.18 percent, China Mengniu Dairy perked 0.13 percent, China Resources Land rallied 0.56 percent, CITIC weakened 1.31 percent, CNOOC lost 0.47 percent, Country Garden surged 2.57 percent, CSPC Pharmaceutical sank 1.16 percent, Galaxy Entertainment rose 0.26 percent, Hang Lung Properties and CLP Holdings both skidded 1.28 percent, Henderson Land tumbled 2.05 percent, Hong Kong & China Gas added 0.51 percent, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China collected 0.46 percent, JD.com declined 1.81 percent, Lenovo shed 1.10 percent, Meituan stumbled 1.71 percent, New World Development retreated 1.90 percent, Techtronic Industries tanked 2.80 percent, Xiaomi Corporation slumped 1.48 percent and WuXi Biologics plummeted 4.40 percent.

The lead from Wall Street is murky as the major averages opened sharply lower on Friday but rallied to finish mixed and flat.

The Dow dropped 57.94 points or 0.15 percent to finish at 38,589.16, while the NASDAQ rose 21.32 points or 0.12 percent to close at a record 17,688.88 and the S&P 500 dipped 2.14 points or 0.04 percent to end at 5,431.60.

For the week, the NASDAQ surged 3.2 percent, the S&P 500 jumped 1.6 percent and the Dow fell 0.5 percent.

Traders looked to cash in on recent strength in the markets early in the session, but selling pressure became subdued after the Labor Department noted unexpected decreases by U.S. import and export prices in May.

While Federal Reserve officials forecast just one rate cut this year following this week's monetary policy meeting, traders are hopeful the predictions will turn out to be overly conservative if inflation continues to slow in the coming months.

Oil futures snapped a four-day winning streak and settled lower on Friday after data showed a jump in U.S. crude inventories, while a stronger greenback weighed as well. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for July fell $0.17 or about 0.22 percent at $78.45 a barrel. WTI crude futures gained nearly 4 percent in the week.