(fxcue news) - The Hong Kong stock market on Thursday snapped the two-day winning streak in which it had advanced more than 280 points or 1.4 percent. The Hang Seng Index now sits just beneath the 20,490-point plateau although it's expected to open to the upside 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 Hang Seng finished sharply lower on Thursday following losses from the property stocks and technology companies. For the day, the index stumbled 270.53 points or 1.30 percent to finish at 20,489.62 after trading between 20,448.46 and 20,685.46. Among the actives, Alibaba Group retreated 3.24 percent, while Alibaba Health Info plummeted 4.73 percent, ANTA Sports dropped 2.01 percent, China Life Insurance was down 0.94 percent, China Mengniu Dairy declined 3.11 percent, China Resources Land tumbled 3.44 percent, CITIC slid 1.07 percent, CNOOC climbed 1.17 percent, CSPC Pharmaceutical tanked 3.45 percent, Galaxy Entertainment dipped 1.02 percent, Haier Smart Home eased 0.82 percent, Hang Lung Properties sank 1.97 percent, Henderson Land shed 1.72 percent, Hong Kong & China Gas added 0.33 percent, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China collected 0.42 percent, JD.com surrendered 3.02 percent, Lenovo slumped 2.71 percent, Li Auto lost 1.49 percent, Li Ning rallied 1.44 percent, Meituan plunged 4.05 percent, New World Development skidded 2.11 percent, Nongfu Spring stumbled 3.16 percent, Techtronic Industries slipped 0.97 percent, Xiaomi Corporation fell 1.17 percent and WuXi Biologics weakened 2.37 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.