(RTTNews) - The China stock market has finished lower in back-to-back trading days, retreating almost 30 points or 0.8 percent along the way. The Shanghai Composite Index now rests just beneath the 3,565-point plateau and it's looking at another soft start again on Monday.
The global forecast for the Asian markets is broadly negative on fears of lockdown measures following the rapid spread of a new COVID variant. The European and U.S. markets were sharply lower and the Asian bourses figure to open in similar fashion.
The SCI finished modestly lower on Friday following losses from the financial shares, resource stocks and properties.
For the day, the index shed 20.09 points or 0.56 percent to finish at 3,564.09 after trading between 3,554.88 and 3,576.11. The Shenzhen Composite Index dipped 5.07 points or 0.20 percent to end at 2,507.15.
Among the actives, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China lost 0.43 percent, while Bank of China shed 0.32 percent, China Construction Bank fell 0.34 percent, China Merchants Bank tanked 2.57 percent, Bank of Communications sank 0.65 percent, China Life Insurance retreated 1.60 percent, Jiangxi Copper tumbled 1.80 percent, Aluminum Corp of China (Chalco) declined 1.50 percent, Yanzhou Coal plummeted 6.17 percent, PetroChina surrendered 2.05 percent, China Petroleum and Chemical (Sinopec) skidded 0.73 percent, Huaneng Power plunged 4.03 percent, China Shenhua Energy stumbled 2.90 percent, Gemdale slumped 2.01 percent, Poly Developments was down 1.40 percent and China Vanke dipped 1.20 percent.
The lead from Wall Street suggests heavy selling pressure as the major averages opened sharpy lower on Friday and remained that way throughout the session.
The Dow plummeted 905.04 points or 2.53 percent to finish at 34,899.34, while the NASDAQ plunged 353.57 points or 2.23 percent to close at 15,491.66 and the S&P 500 tumbled 106.84 points or 2.27 percent to end at 4,594.62.
For the week, the NASDAQ dropped 3.5 percent, the Dow sank 2.2 percent and the S&P retreated 2.0 percent.
The sell-off on Wall Street followed reports a new coronavirus variant has been detected in South Africa. The news, which comes amid a surge in new Covid-19 cases in Europe, raised concerns the pandemic could continue to wreak havoc on the global economy.
Crude oil prices plummeted on Friday, sending the most active crude futures contract to their biggest single-session fall this year as reports of the new coronavirus variant raised concerns about the outlook for energy demand. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for December ended down $10.24 or 13 percent at $68.15 a barrel, the biggest single-session loss since April 2020.
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