Hong Kong Shares May See Mild Upside On Monday

(RTTNews) - The Hong Kong stock market has finished lower in back-to-back sessions, slumping more than 740 points or 3 percent in that span. The Hang Seng Index now sits just above the 22,670-point plateau although investors may go looking for bargains on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is flat to lower on concerns over the situation in the Middle East and on the outlook for interest rates. The European markets were down and the U.S. bourses were barely in the red and the Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.

The Hang Seng finished sharply lower on Friday following losses from the financial shares, technology stocks, properties and energy producers.

For the day, the index plunged 405.04 points or 1.76 percent to finish at 22,671.86 after trading between 22,518.00 and 22,962.46.

Among the actives, AIA skidded 1.94 percent, while Alibaba Group plummeted 5.79 percent, Baidu plunged 4.50 percent, Bank of China jumped 1.40 percent, BOC Hong Kong sank 1.64 percent, China Construction Bank slipped 0.48 percent, China Life Insurance crashed 5.48 percent, China Merchants Bank gave up 0.31 percent, China Mobile was down 0.32 percent, China Petroleum & Chemical fell 0.73 percent, China Shenhua Energy perked 0.10 percent, CITIC slid 0.42 percent, CNOOC dropped 1.70 percent, Hong Kong Exchange lost 1.20 percent, HSBC dipped 0.40 percent, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China eased 0.15 percent, JD.com tumbled 2.78 percent, Lenovo Group contracted 2.25 percent, Meituan surrendered 2.80 percent, NetEase surged 3.14 percent, Nongfu Spring shed 1.35 percent, PetroChina added 0.57 percent, Ping An Insurance stumbled 2.69 percent, Semiconductor Manufacturing cratered 6.98 percent, Sun Hung Kai Properties retreated 2.31 percent, Tencent Holdings declined 2.28 percent, Xiaomi Corporation tanked 3.95 percent, WuXi AppTec rose 0.28 percent and Zijin Mining slumped 2.07 percent.

The lead from Wall Street is weak as the major averages opened lower on Friday, peeked back above the unchanged line by midday but slumped again heading into the close.

The Dow shed 44.51 points or 0.09 percent to finish at 51,876.11, while the NASDAQ sank 60.99 points or 0.24 percent to close at 25,297.62 and the S&P 500 eased 3.47 points or 0.05 percent to end at 7,354.02.

The weakness that emerged on Wall Street came un the ambiguity surrounding the peace process in the U.S.-Iran conflict, while the earlier positive bounce was the result of sliding crude oil prices.

Crude oil prices tumbled on Friday as optimism increases on resumption of oil flow from the Arab region. West Texas Intermediate crude for August delivery was down $2.60 or 3.62 percent at $69.32 per barrel.

In economic news, revised data released by the University of Michigan showed consumer sentiment in the U.S. rebounded slightly more than estimated in June. The University of Michigan said its consumer sentiment index for June was upwardly revised to 49.5 from the previously reported 48.9.