(RTTNews) - The China stock market on Friday halted the three-day winning streak in which it had advanced nearly 60 points or 1.8 percent. The Shanghai Composite now sits just above the 3,390-point plateau although it's expected to be rangebound on Monday.
The global forecast for the Asian markets suggests little movement ahead of the FOMC meeting later this week. The European and U.S. markets mostly saw slight weakness and the Asian markets figure to follow that lead.
The SCI finished sharply lower on Friday following losses from the financial shares, property stocks and resource companies.
For the day, the index tumbled 69.62 points or 2.01 percent to finish at 3,391.88 after trading between 3,390.75 and 3,442.93. The Shenzhen Composite Index dropped 42.47 points or 2.01 percent to end at 2,070.42.
Among the actives, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China shed 0.47 percent, while Bank of China fell 0.38 percent, China Construction Bank eased 0.12 percent, China Merchants Bank plunged 3.87 percent, Agricultural Bank of China lost 0.60 percent, China Life Insurance plummeted 4.53 percent, Jiangxi Copper stumbled 3.01 percent, Aluminum Corp of China (Chalco) surrendered 3.18 percent, Yankuang Energy retreated 2.99 percent, PetroChina tumbled 2.01 percent, China Petroleum and Chemical (Sinopec) declined 1.55 percent, Huaneng Power slumped 2.10 percent, China Shenhua Energy skidded 1.18 percent, Gemdale crashed 6.34 percent, Poly Developments dropped 3.62 percent and China Vanke sank 3.22 percent.
The lead from Wall Street suggests mild downside as the major averages opened higher on Friday but quickly slipped under water and largely stayed that way, although the NASDAQ broke back into positive territory later in the day.
The Dow shed 86.04 points or 0.20 percent to finish at 43,828.06, while the NASDAQ rose 23.92 points or 0.12 percent to close at 19,926.72 and the S&P 500 eased 0.16 points or 0.00 percent to end at 6,051.09.
For the week, the NASDAQ rose 0.3 percent, the S&P 500 slid 0.6 percent and the narrower Dow tumbled 1.8 percent.
The early strength on Wall Street partly reflected a positive reaction to earnings news from Broadcom (AVGO), which reported better than expected fiscal fourth quarter earnings and said it expects continued strong demand for its custom AI chips.
Buying interest waned shortly after the start of trading, however, as traders looked ahead to this week's Federal Reserve meeting. The Fed is widely expected to lower interest rates by another 25 basis points, although traders are likely to pay close attention to the accompanying statement for clues about future rate cuts.
Oil futures settled higher on Friday as supply worries resurfaced following additional sanctions on Iran and Russia. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for January closed up $1.27 or about 1.8 percent at $71.29 a barrel.
Closer to home, China is scheduled to release a raft of data on Monday, including November numbers for industrial production, retail sales, fixed asset investment, house prices and unemployment.
In October, industrial production was up 5.3 percent on year, while retail sales rose 4.8 percent, fixed asset investment added 3.4 percent, house prices sank 5.9 percent and the jobless rate was 5.0 percent.
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