Continued Consolidation Likely For Hong Kong Shares

(RTTNews) - The Hong Kong stock market has moved lower in consecutive trading days, slumping more than 260 points or 1.4 percent in that span. The Hang Seng Index now sits just above the 18,310-point plateau and it's looking at another soft start for Thursday's trade.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is uninspired thanks to uncertainty over the outlook for interest rates. The European markets were slightly higher and the U.S. bourses were mixed and flat and the Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.

The Hang Seng finished modestly lower on Wednesday following losses from the financial shares, property stocks and technology companies.

For the day, the index stumbled 165.51 points or 0.90 percent to finish at 18,313.86 after trading between 18,298.36 and 18,606.56.

Among the actives, Alibaba Group slumped 2.43 percent, while Alibaba Health Info added 0.33 percent, ANTA Sports retreated 2.55 percent, China Life Insurance declined 2.50 percent, China Mengniu Dairy tumbled 3.50 percent, China Resources Land plunged 5.20 percent, CITIC dropped 1.94 percent, Country Garden plummeted 5.68 percent, CSPC Pharmaceutical dipped 0.15 percent, Galaxy Entertainment slid 0.94 percent, Hang Lung Properties tanked 4.05 percent, Henderson Land lost 1.63 percent, Hong Kong & China Gas fell 0.97 percent, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China was down 0.46 percent, JD.com eased 0.32 percent, Lenovo slipped 0.53 percent, Li Ning sank 1.88 percent, Meituan shed 1.73 percent, New World Development surrendered 3.70 percent, Techtronic Industries stumbled 3.13 percent, Xiaomi Corporation surged 6.47 percent, WuXi Biologics skidded 2.08 percent and CNOOC was unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street offers little clarity as the major averages opened lower but ultimately wound up mixed and little changed.

The Dow added 172.13 points or 0.44 percent to finish at 39,056.39, while the NASDAQ sank 29.80 points or 0.18 percent to close at 16,302.76 and the S&P 500 eased 0.03 points or 0.00 percent to end at 5,187.67.

The choppy trading on Wall Street came amid lingering uncertainty about the outlook for interest rates following Tuesday's remarks by Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari.

Kashkari suggested interest rates may need to remain at current levels for an extended period and said he couldn't rule out another rate increase.

The Federal Reserve is still widely expected to lower rates sometime in the third quarter, however, with CME Group's FedWatch Tool currently indicating an 83.5 percent chance rates will be lower by September.

Oil futures settled higher on Wednesday after data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed crude inventories rose last week. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for June ended higher by $0.61 or 0.78 percent at $78.99 per barrel.