Hong Kong Stock Market May Add To Its Winnings

(RTTNews) - The Hong Kong stock market has moved higher in consecutive trading days, improving more than 50 points or 0.3 percent in that span. The Hang Seng Index now rests just beneath the 17,770-point plateau and it's looking at a firm open again on Wednesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets suggests little movement ahead of Friday's U.S. employment data. The European markets were down and the U.S. bourses were up and the Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.

The Hang Seng finished slightly higher on Tuesday following mixed performances from the financial shares, property stocks and technology companies.

For the day, the index rose 50.53 points or 0.29 percent to finish at 17,769.14 after trading between 17,669.42 and 17,986.14.

Among the actives, Alibaba Group eased 0.07 percent, while Alibaba Health Info dropped 0.96 percent, ANTA Sports tanked 2.73 percent, China Life Insurance jumped 1.63 percent, China Resources Land soared 3.01 percent, CITIC added 0.56 percent, CNOOC surged 4.46 percent, Country Garden rallied 2.28 percent, CSPC Pharmaceutical gained 0.48 percent, Galaxy Entertainment shed 0.41 percent, Hang Lung Properties skidded 1.05 percent, Henderson Land advanced 0.72 percent, Hong Kong & China Gas sank 0.67 percent, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China spiked 2.37 percent, JD.com tumbled 2.03 percent, Lenovo rose 0.18 percent, Li Ning plummeted 4.97 percent, Meituan climbed 0.99 percent, New World Development stumbled 1.50 percent, Techtronic Industries fell 0.22 percent, Xiaomi Corporation strengthened 1.09 percent, WuXi Biologics plunged 3.12 percent and China Mengniu Dairy was unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is positive as the major averages opened lower on Tuesday and hugged the line for much of the day before a late surge sent them firmly into the green by the close.

The Dow jumped 162.33 points or 0.41 percent to finish at 39,331.85, while the NASDAQ rallied 149.46 points or 0.84 percent to close at 18,028.76 and the S&P 500 gained 33.92 points or 0.62 percent to end at 5,509.01.

The soft start on Wall Street followed comments from Fed Chair Jerome Powell, who expressed satisfaction with the progress on inflation but said he wants to see more before being confident enough to start cutting interest rates.

Stocks moved higher after bond yields drifted down as investors look ahead to key employment data later in the week.

Oil prices fell on Tuesday amid easing fears about supply disruptions caused by Hurricane Beryl. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for August ended down $0.57 or about 0.7 percent at $82.81 a barrel.