The China stock market has moved lower in two straight sessions, retreating almost 45 points or 1.3 percent along the way. The Shanghai Composite Index now rests just above the 3,565-point plateau and it's tipped to open under pressure again on Friday.
The global forecast for the Asian is mixed to lower, with stimulus optimism tempered by concern over the outlook for interest rates. 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 modestly lower on Thursday as losses from the resource stocks were mitigated by support from the financials and properties.
For the day, the index lost 32.75 points or 0.91 percent to finish at 3,565.90 after trading between 3,559.60 and 3,599.06. The Shenzhen Composite Index dropped 33.34 points or 1.39 percent to end at 2,360.40.
Among the actives, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China collected 0.40 percent, while Bank of China added 0.31 percent, China Construction Bank shed 0.46 percent, China Merchants Bank dropped 0.71 percent, Bank of Communications rose 0.22 percent, China Life Insurance gained 0.67 percent, Jiangxi Copper plummeted 3.33 percent, Aluminum Corp of China (Chalco) tanked 2.47 percent, Yanzhou Coal tumbled 1.79 percent, PetroChina sank 0.69 percent, China Petroleum and Chemical (Sinopec) gathered 0.24 percent, China Shenhua Energy skidded 1.01 percent, Gemdale perked 0.57 percent, Poly Developments was up 0.13 percent, China Vanke improved 0.30 percent and China Minsheng Bank was unchanged.
The lead from Wall Street is soft as stocks opened higher on Thursday but faded as the day progressed and ended slightly in the red.
The Dow shed 68.95 points or 0.22 percent to finish at 30,991.52, while the NASDAQ dipped 16.31 points or 0.12 percent to end at 13,112.64 and the S&P 500 fell 14.30 points or 0.38 percent to close at 3,795.54.
Optimism about additional fiscal stimulus helped generate early buying interest as President-elect Joe Biden is expected to unveil a major coronavirus relief package with a price tag in the ballpark of $2 trillion.
Trades were also reacting to a Labor Department report showing initial jobless claims jumped to their highest level in over four months last week. Traders have viewed disappointing data as a positive for the markets as it could put further pressure on lawmakers to approve more stimulus.
The pullback by stocks seemed to coincide with an advance by treasury yields, which rebounded following remarks by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell - who suggested that the economy could return to pre-pandemic levels sooner than feared due to unprecedented fiscal stimulus and the Fed's aggressive intervention.
But he reiterated that the Fed does not intend to raise interest rate anytime soon and downplayed talk of the central bank tapering its bond purchases in the near future.
Crude oil prices bounced higher Thursday on hopes that big stimulus from the Biden administration and the Covid-19 vaccination drive will lift energy demand. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for February ended up by $0.66 or 1.3 percent at $53.57 a barrel.
Closer to home, China will see house price data for December later today; in November, house prices were up 4.0 percent on year.
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