The China stock market on Thursday snapped the four-day winning streak in which it had rallied more than 135 points or 4 percent. The Shanghai Composite now sits just above the 3,280-point plateau although its likely to bounce higher again on Friday.
The global forecast for the Asian markets is mixed to higher, likely driven by the latest earnings news. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourses were mixed and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.
The SCI finished modestly lower on Thursday following losses from the property stocks and resource companies, while the finances and energy shares were mixed.
For the day, the index shed 22.54 points or 0.68 percent to finish at 3,280.26 after trading between 3,266.88 and 3,292.94. The Shenzhen Composite Index sank 17,75 points or 0.91 percent to end at 1,938.81.
Among the actives, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China improved 0.33 percent, while Bank of China dipped 0.20 percent, China Construction Bank rose 0.25 percent, China Merchants Bank dropped 0.88 percent, Agricultural Bank of China collected 0.41 percent, China Life Insurance tumbled 1.56 percent, Jiangxi Copper shed 0.61 percent, Aluminum Corp of China (Chalco) climbed 1.15 percent, Yankuang Energy declined 1.30 percent, PetroChina fell 0.35 percent, China Petroleum and Chemical (Sinopec) retreated 1.52 percent, Huaneng Power gained 0.68 percent, China Shenhua Energy added 0.58 percent, Gemdale plunged 3.52 percent, Poly Developments stumbled 2.01 percent and China Vanke tanked 2.25 percent.
The lead from Wall Street is murky as the major averages opened mixed on Thursday and finished the same way.
The Dow dropped 140.59 points or 0.33 percent to finish at 42,374.36, while the NASDAQ climbed 138.83 points or 0.76 percent to close at 18,415.49 and the S&P 500 rose 12.44 points or 0.21 percent to end at 5,809.86.
The strength on the tech-heavy NASDAQ was spurred by strong quarterly earnings from the likes of Tesla (TSLA) and UPS (UPS).
On the other hand, the Dow was weighed by weak quarterly earnings news from IBM (IBM), Honeywell (HON) and Boeing (BA).
Oil prices fell on Thursday, extending losses from the previous session as concerns about excess supply and weak crude consumption in China weighed. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for December ended down $0.58 or 0.8 percent at $70.19 a barrel.