The China stock market has moved lower in three straight sessions, stumbling more than 30 points or 1 percent along the way. The Shanghai Composite Index now sits just beneath the 3,000-point plateau although it\'s due for support on Monday.
The global forecast for the Asian markets is weak, with oil and technology stocks likely to weigh on the markets. The European markets were down and the U.S. bourses were mixed and flat and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.
The SCI finished slightly lower on Friday following losses from the financial shares, property stocks and resource companies.
For the day, the index slipped 7.30 points or 0.24 percent to finish at 2,998.14 after trading between 2,985.93 and 3,011.91. The Shenzhen Composite Index eased 1.54 points or 0.09 percent to end at 1,654.32.
Among the actives, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China eased 0.18 percent, while Bank of China shed 0.45 percent, China Construction Bank dipped 0.14 percent, China Merchants Bank dropped 0.91 percent, Bank of Communications collected 0.42 percent, Agricultural Bank of China skidded 1.18 percent, China Life Insurance fell 0.32 percent, Jiangxi Copper lost 0.49 percent, Aluminum Corp of China (Chalco) sank 0.79 percent, Yankuang Energy was down 0.60 percent, PetroChina slumped 0.89 percent, China Petroleum and Chemical (Sinopec) retreated 0.49 percent, Huaneng Power declined 0.55 percent, China Shenhua Energy weakened 1.17 percent, Gemdale stumbled 1.12 percent, Poly Developments added 0.53 percent and China Vanke slid 0.28 percent.
The lead from Wall Street is soft as the major averages opened lower on Friday and ultimately finished mixed but little changed.
The Dow added 15.53 points or 0.04 percent to finish at 39,150.33, while the NASDAQ shed 32.24 points or 0.18 percent to end at 17,689.36 and the S&P 500 dipped 8.55 points or 0.16 percent to close at 5,464.62.
For the holiday-shortened week, the Dow jumped 1.5 percent and the S&P 500 climbed 0.6 percent, while the NASDAQ was nearly unchanged.
The choppy trading on Wall Street came as traders assessed recent activity in the markets, which saw the NASDAQ and the S&P 500 reach new record intraday highs before turning lower.
Traders also kept an eye on shares of Nvidia (NVDA), as the AI darling has recently been a key driver of the markets. It dragged the technology shares lower after slumping 3.2 percent on Friday after briefly surpassing Microsoft (MSFT) as the world\'s most valuable public company.
On the economic front, the National Association of Realtors said existing home sales in the U.S. fell roughly in line with estimates in May. A separate report from the Conference Board said leading U.S. economic indicators fell more than expected last month.
Oil futures settled lower on Friday, weighed down by concerns about the outlook for global oil demand and a firm greenback. West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures for July shed $0.56 or 0.7 percent at $80.73 a barrel for the week but gained 3 percent for the week.