(RTTNews) - The China stock market has finished higher in two of three trading days since the end of the two-day slide in which it had slipped more than 25 points or 0.6 percent. The Shanghai Composite Index now sits just beneath the 4,110-point plateau and it's likely to remain rangebound again on Thursday.
The global forecast for the Asian markets is soft on surging oil prices and uncertainty about the conflict in the Middle East. The European markets were down and the U.S. bourses were mixed and little changed and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.
The SCI finished modestly higher on Wednesday as gains from the resource, energy and property sectors were capped by weakness from the financial shares.
For the day, the index improved 28.88 points or 0.71 percent to finish at 4,107.51 after trading between 4,061.82 and 4,112.15. The Shenzhen Composite Index jumped 45.27 points or 1.66 percent to end at 2,772.50.
Among the actives, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China sank 0.80 percent, while Bank of China advanced 0.99 percent, Agricultural Bank of China shed 0.57 percent, China Merchants Bank tanked 2.78 percent, Bank of Communications fell 0.43 percent, China Life Insurance perked 0.03 percent, Jiangxi Copper soared 4.74 percent, Aluminum Corp of China (Chalco) expanded 2.14 percent, Yankuang Energy skyrocketed 7.97 percent, PetroChina added 0.57 percent, China Petroleum and Chemical (Sinopec) strengthened 1.31 percent, Huaneng Power vaulted 1.59 percent, China Shenhua Energy slipped 0.35 percent, Gemdale surged 6.30 percent, Poly Developments jumped 1.82 percent and China Vanke rallied 3.20 percent.
The lead from Wall Street is uninspired as the major averages opened lower on Wednesday and hugged the line for most of the day, finally ending mixed.
The Dow dropped 280.12 points or 0.57 percent to finish at 48,861.81, while the NASDAQ perked 9.44 points or 0.04 percent to close at 24,673.24 and the S&P 500 eased 2.85 points or 0.04 percent to end at 7,135.95.
The lackluster performance on Wall Street came as traders were reluctant to make significant moves ahead of the release of earnings news after the close from big-name tech companies such as Alphabet (GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN), Meta Platforms (META) and Microsoft (MSFT).
Traders also kept an eye on the Federal Reserve's latest monetary policy announcement, with the central bank announcing its widely expected decision to leave interest rates unchanged in an unusually divided vote.
Crude oil prices surged again on Wednesday as an end to the Middle East war still remains elusive, keeping the blockade on the Strait of Hormuz in place. West Texas Intermediate crude for June delivery was up $6.79 or 6.79 percent at $106.72 per barrel.
Closer to home, China will this morning see April results of the manufacturing, non-manufacturing and composite indexes from the National Bureau of Statistics, plus the manufacturing PMI from Caixin. In March, the NBS scores were 50.4, 50.1 and 50.5, respectively, while the Caixin reading was 50.8.
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