China Bourse Tipped To End Losing Streak

(RTTNews) - Ahead of the long weekend for the Mid-Autumn Festival, the China stock market had moved lower in three straight sessions, sinking more than 40 points or 1.5 percent along the way. The Shanghai Composite now sits just above the 2,700-point plateau although it's due for support on Wednesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is flat ahead of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy decision later today. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourses were mixed and flat and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

The SCI finished modestly lower on Friday following mixed performances from the financial, property, resource and energy sectors.

For the day, the index shed 13.03 points or 0.48 percent to finish at 2,704.09 after trading between 2,703.37 and 2,728.78. The Shenzhen Composite Index slumped 16.06 points or 1.08 percent to end at 1,476.26.

Among the actives, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China collected 0.36 percent, while Bank of China skidded 1.08 percent, China Construction Bank added 0.42 percent, China Merchants Bank strengthened 1.22 percent, Agricultural Bank of China dropped 0.89 percent, China Life Insurance improved 0.71 percent, Jiangxi Copper eased 0.16 percent, Aluminum Corp of China (Chalco) and China Petroleum and Chemical (Sinopec) both perked 0.16 percent, Yankuang Energy stumbled 2.08 percent, PetroChina gained 0.77 percent, Huaneng Power rose 0.31 percent, China Shenhua Energy increased 0.64 percent, Gemdale was up 0.28 percent, Poly Developments slid 0.13 percent and China Vanke gathered 0.16 percent.

The lead from Wall Street offers little guidance as the major averages opened slightly higher on Tuesday, hugged the line for most of the day before ending mixed and little changed.

The Dow sank 60.32 points or 0.14 percent to finish at 41,606.18, while the NASDAQ added 35.93 points or 0.20 percent to close at 17,628.06 and the S&P 500 perked 1.49 points or 0.03 percent to end at 5,634.58.

Optimism about the outlook for interest rates contributed to early strength on Wall Street, but buying interest waned over the course of the session.

Stocks ended the day little changed following the release of a Commerce Department report unexpectedly showing a modest increase by U.S. retail sales in the month of August.

While the data is positive for the economy, it was seen as reducing the likelihood the Federal Reserve will lower interest rates by 50 basis points when announcing its highly anticipated monetary policy decision later today.

Oil prices climbed higher on Tuesday as concerns about tight supply in the market offset continued uncertainty about the outlook for demand from China. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for October ended higher by $1.10 or 1.5 percent at $71.19 a barrel.