Hong Kong Stock Market Predicted To Remain Under Pressure

(RTTNews) - The Hong Kong stock market has finished lower in three straight sessions, tumbling almost 850 points or 4.5 percent along the way. Now at a fresh 11-year closing low, the Hang Seng Index sits just above the 17,930-point plateau and it's tipped to open lower again on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is soft on continuing recession fears. The European and U.S. markets were sharply lower on Friday and now the Asian markets are tipped to open in similar fashion.

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

For the day, the index slumped 214.63 points or 1.18 percent to finish at 17,933.27 after trading between 17,926.29 and 18,165.95.

Among the actives, Alibaba Group tanked 3.03 percent, while Alibaba Health Info plunged 3.18 percent, ANTA Sports weakened 1.65 percent, China Life Insurance collected 0.19 percent, China Mengniu Dairy and Xiaomi Corporation both retreated 2.27 percent, China Petroleum and Chemical (Sinopec) jumped 1.43 percent, China Resources Land slumped 1.87 percent, CITIC advanced 0.77 percent, Country Garden tumbled 2.86 percent, CSPC Pharmaceutical skidded 1.55 percent, Galaxy Entertainment dipped 0.23 percent, Hang Lung Properties slid 0.30 percent, Henderson Land shed 0.83 percent, Hong Kong & China Gas eased 0.14 percent, JD.com plummeted 3.39 percent, Lenovo fell 0.51 percent, Li Ning stumbled 2.11 percent, Longfor lost 0.58 percent, Meituan surrendered 2.79 percent, New World Development sank 0.99 percent, Techtronic Industries dropped 1.39 percent, WuXi Biologics declined 2.62 percent and CNOOC and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street continues to be negative as the major averages opened sharply lower on Friday and stayed that way throughout the session.

The Dow plunged 486.29 points or 1.62 percent to finish at 29,590.41, while the NASDAQ tumbled 198.87 points or 1.80 percent to close at 10.867.93 and the S&P 500 sank 64.76 points or 1.72 percent to end at 3,693.23. For the week, the Dow dropped 4.0 percent, the NASDAQ plunged 5.1 percent and the S&P fell 4.7 percent.

Concerns about the outlook for the global economy continued to weigh on Wall Street after aggressive interest rate hikes by central banks around the world. Traders remain concerned the central banks' efforts to combat elevated inflation will push the global economy into a recession.

The Federal Reserve raised interest rates by another 75 basis points earlier this week and signaled more significant rate hikes later this year.

While the Fed's projections pointed to an eventually tapering of rate hikes by next year, traders worry about the outlook for the global economy in the months ahead.

Crude oil prices fell sharply on Friday, pushing the most active crude futures contract to their lowest close in about seven months. Weak outlook for energy demand due to a possible global recession outweighed concerns about tight supplies. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for November ended lower by $4.75 or 5.7 percent at $78.74 a barrel, the lowest settlement since January.

Closer to home, Hong Kong will see August figures for imports, exports and trade balance later today. In July, imports were down 9.9 percent on year and exports fell an annual 8.9 percent for a trade deficit of HKD27.6 billion.