The Hong Kong stock market on Friday ended the two-day winning streak in which it had advanced almost 140 points or 0.9 percent. The Hang Seng Index now sits just beneath the 16,225-point plateau and it's expected to open in the red again on Monday.
The global forecast for the Asian markets in negative, with continued pressure likely on the technology shares. The European markets were down and the U.S. bourses were mixed and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.
The Hang Seng finished modestly lower on Friday following losses from the technology stocks and a mixed picture from the property and finance sectors.
For the day, the index dropped 161.76 points or 0.99 percent to finish at 16,224.14 after trading between 16,044.45 and 16,254.90.
Among the actives, Alibaba Group retreated 1.77 percent, while Alibaba Health Info skidded 1.51 percent, ANTA Sports dropped 1.35 percent, China Life Insurance slid 0.66 percent, China Mengniu Dairy and ENN Energy both stumbled 2.31 percent, China Resources Land sank 1.26 percent, CITIC lost 1.00 percent, CNOOC rallied 1.20 percent, Country Garden surged 3.26 percent, CSPC Pharmaceutical slumped 1.54 percent, Galaxy Entertainment shed 1.17 percent, Hang Lung Properties jumped 1.23 percent, Henderson Land fell 0.67 percent, Hong Kong & China Gas was down 0.53 percent, JD.com shed 0.76 percent, Li Ning tanked 2.90 percent, Meituan tumbled 2.51 percent, New World Development declined 1.59 percent, Techtronic Industries surrendered 2.50 percent, Xiaomi Corporation plunged 3.54 percent, WuXi Biologics plummeted 4.68 percent and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Lenovo were unchanged.
The lead from Wall Street is conflicted as the Dow opened higher on Friday and stayed that way, while the S&P and NASDAQ spent the entire session under water.
The Dow rallied 211.00 points or 0.56 percent to finish at 37,986.40, while the NASDAQ tumbled 319.49 points or 2.05 percent to end at 15,282.01 and the S&P 500 sank 43.89 points or 0.88 percent to close at 4,967.23.
For the week, the NASDAQ plummeted 5.5 percent, the S&P tumbled 3.1 percent and the Dow rose 0.1 percent.
The steep drop by the NASDAQ reflected heavy selling among shares of Netflix (NFLX) and AI darling Nvidia (NVDA). Reflecting the weakness in the sector, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dove by 4.1 percent to its lowest closing level since early February.
Banking stocks turned in a strong performance, driving the KBW Bank Index up by 2.9 percent. Interest rate-sensitive utilities stocks also moved notably higher amid a pullback by treasury yields, resulting in a 1.8 percent jump by the Dow Jones Utility Average.
Oil prices moved higher on Friday as geopolitical tensions rose following Israel's retaliatory attack on Iran. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for May ended higher by $0.41 at $83.14 a barrel, although WTI crude futures shed about 3 percent in the week.
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