Hong Kong Stocks End First Session In The Red

Hong Kong stocks finished the morning with small losses on Friday, on a quiet day for Asian markets following a tepid lead from Wall Street.

The Hang Seng Index dipped 0.1 percent, to 24,448.

On the mainland, the Shanghai Composite Index gained 0.4 percent, to 2,950 and the Shenzhen Composite Index rose 0.9 percent, to 1,925.

Tokyo went into the break 0.1 percent higher.

Sydney jumped 0.9 percent, Jakarta added 0.8 percent and Wellington was 0.5 percent higher, though Seoul, Singapore and Manila were in the red.

Kate Moore, at BlackRock, said there was too much uncertainty on trading floors to have any confidence in what will happen in the future.

"No one at this point, analysts, companies, strategists, portfolio managers, has a great sense for what earnings will be in 2020 or in 2021," she told Bloomberg TV. "We are experiencing a lot of dislocations in the economy and consumption patterns and it is pretty difficult to predict."

On currency markets the pound struggled to bounce back from Thursday's drop that came after the Bank of England unveiled an extra £100 billion of cash stimulus to prop up the economy, which met forecasts but analysts said traders were disappointed by a lack of forward-looking reassurance. (AFP)

______________________________