This looks to be a week of waiting for equity traders and investors. Waiting for HSBC results today. Waiting for employment figures out of Washington on Friday. Waiting to gauge sentiment at several high-profile property launches later this month.
Few brokers were willing to predict with any certainty how the share market would end the week, but most saw the blue-chip Hang Seng Index trading in a range of 13,000 to 13,600 points. On Friday, the index closed at 13,398.72, down 46.13 points on the week.
The waiting game began last week, with profit-taking in HSBC and subsidiary Hang Seng Bank ahead of the group's results.
Howard Gorges, director at South China Brokerage, said: 'Technically, we are in no-man's land.' With Friday's 148-point fall, the break higher than some analysts had forecast was in doubt. 'The next few days will be critical,' he said.
How banking shares fare this week will depend on HSBC results, to be announced at 4 pm.
Archie Hart at BZW Securities said: 'Everyone is expecting wonderful results. They will have to be absolutely amazing' to support a further rise in the bank's share price.
Traders will be watching Wall Street closely for any further fall-out from Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan's unusually bold remarks about asset bubbles brewing and the possible need for a pre-emptive tightening of monetary policy.