BEIJING (dpa-AFX) - The China stock market has tracked lower in consecutive trading days, sinking almost 45 points or 1.4 percent along the way. The Shanghai Composite Index now rests just above the 3,595-point plateau and it's expected to open under pressure again on Thursday.
The global forecast for the Asian markets is soft on concerns over the outlook for interest rates, especially among the tech shares. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourses were down and the Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.
The SCI finished sharply lower on Wednesday following losses from the resource and energy companies, while the financials and properties offered support.
For the day, the index dropped 37.15 points or 1.02 percent to finish at 3,595.18 after trading between 3,583.47 and 3,628.26. The Shenzhen Composite Index tumbled 44.01 points or 1.74 percent to end at 2,483.69.
Among the actives, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China advanced 0.86 percent, while Bank of China collected 0.65 percent, China Construction Bank spiked 2.03 percent, China Merchants Bank climbed 1.45 percent, Bank of Communications gained 0.87 percent, China Life Insurance added 0.73 percent, Jiangxi Copper rose 0.18 percent, Aluminum Corp of China (Chalco) plunged 4.12 percent, Yankuang Energy declined 1.79 percent, PetroChina perked 0.40 percent, China Petroleum and Chemical (Sinopec) increased 0.47 percent, Huaneng Power plummeted 5.00 percent, China Shenhua Energy retreated 1.45 percent, Gemdale shed 0.37 percent, Poly Developments improved 1.27 percent, China Vanke soared 3.32 percent and China Fortune Land was unchanged.
The lead from Wall Street is broadly negative as the major averages opened flat on Wednesday and hugged the unchanged line for most of the session before plummeting after the release of the FOMC minutes.
The Dow tumbled 392.54 points or 1.07 percent to finish at 36,407.54, while the NASDAQ plummeted 522.54 points or 3.34 percent to close at 15,100.17 and the S&P 500 tanked 92.96 points or 1.94 percent to end at 4,700.58.
The sell-off on Wall Street came as the Fed minutes seemed to have a more hawkish tone, raising concerns the central bank will be more aggressive than anticipated.
According to the minutes of the December 14-15 meeting, members of the Fed are preparing to begin reducing the size of the central bank's approximately $8.8 trillion balance sheet soon after raising interest rates.
Meanwhile, traders have largely shrugged off a report from payroll processor ADP showing much stronger than expected private sector job growth in the month of December.
Crude oil prices showed a notable advance Wednesday on optimism the Omicron variant of the coronavirus will not significantly impact global demand. West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures for February delivery jumped $0.86 or 1.1 percent to $77.85 a barrel.
Closer to home, China will see December results for the services and composite indexes from Caixin later this morning. In November, their scores were 52.1 and 51.2, respectively.
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