Hong Kong Shares May See Profit Taking On Thursday

The Hong Kong stock market has moved higher in three straight sessions, gathering almost 1,000 points or 6 percent along the way. The Hang Seng Index now sits just above the 17,200-point plateau although it's due for consolidation on Thursday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets suggests little movement on concerns over the outlook for interest rates. The European markets were slightly lower and the U.S. bourses were mixed and flat and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

The Hang Seng finished sharply higher on Wednesday with gains across the board, especially among the financials, properties and technology stocks.

For the day, the index rallied 372.34 points or 2.21 percent to finish at 17,201.27 after trading between 16,934.65 and 17,217.86.

Among the actives, Alibaba Group rallied 3.87 percent, while Alibaba Health Info improved 2.23 percent, ANTA Sports strengthened 2.41 percent, China Life Insurance surged 5.57 percent, China Mengniu Dairy rose 0.88 percent, China Resources Land accelerated 3.69 percent, CITIC climbed 2.24 percent, CNOOC advanced 1.63 percent, Country Garden spiked 4.26 percent, CSPC Pharmaceutical jumped 2.81 percent, Galaxy Entertainment perked 0.29 percent, Haier Smart Home lost 0.38 percent, Hang Lung Properties gained 1.08 percent, Henderson Land gathered 0.87 percent, Hong Kong & China Gas increased 2.06 percent, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China collected 0.49 percent, JD.com spiked 4.32 percent, Lenovo surged 4.85 percent, Li Ning skyrocketed 7.46 percent, Meituan soared 4.60 percent, New World Development jumped 2.71 percent, Techtronic Industries added 1.62 percent, Xiaomi Corporation rallied 2.97 percent and WuXi Biologics sank 0.62 percent.

The lead from Wall Street offers little clarity as the major averages opened mixed and flat and basically ended the same way.

The Dow shed 42.77 points or 0.11 percent to finish at 38,460.92, while the NASDAQ rose 16.11 points or 0.10 percent to close at 15,712.75 and the S&P 500 perked 1.08 points or 0.02 percent to end at 5,071.63.

A positive reaction to the latest corporate earnings news limited any downside on Wall Street, thanks to the likes of Tesla (TSLA), Texas Instruments (TXN), Visa (V) and Mattel (MAT).

Buying interest waned soon thereafter, however, with traders still worried about the outlook for interest rates ahead of next week's Federal Reserve meeting. The Fed is expected to leave interest rates unchanged, but traders will look for clues about the possibility of future rate cuts.

Oil prices dropped on Wednesday amid concerns about the outlook for demand and on easing tensions in the Middle East. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for June ended down by $0.55 at $82.81 a barrel.

Closer to home, Hong Kong will release March data for imports, exports and trade balance later today; in February, imports were down 1.8 percent on month and exports fell 0.8 percent for a trade deficit of HKD41.7 billion.

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