Top Biz News

Stock index breaks 4,100-point mark in morning session

By Li Zengxin (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2007-06-13 11:53

On a strong growth trend, Chinese stocks leaped high to the 4,100-point platform this morning, after a 1.9 percent rise to reach the 4,000-point level just yesterday.

The Shanghai Composite Index opened 38 points higher from 4,110.74, and closed at 4,157.71 by the noon break, up 85.57 or 2.1 percent from yesterday's closing.

The Shenzhen Component Index, tracking the smaller Shenzhen Stock Exchange, also opened higher and ended at 13,959.81, up 380.09 points or 2.8 percent.

Special coverage: Markets Watch  Related readings:  Shanghai Composite Index breaks 4,100-point mark  Stocks rise for 6th day, regain 4,000-point foothold  Stocks move closer to 4,000-point mark

Of the A shares listed on the two exchanges, as many as 1,242 went up, while only 126 slipped down and 84 closed unchanged. Zhejiang Medicine rose 10.05 percent to 8.65 yuan to lead the surge at the Shanghai bourse. Shenzhen Shiyida Technology on almost doubled its price to 30.7 yuan on its first public trading day. Another new share, Shenzhen Sunlord also had a 150 percent rose. Zhejiang Conba Pharmaceutical and Sichuan Shuangma Cement, however, dropped as the biggest losers against the trend.

Stocks in the real estate, construction and timber industries gained the most this morning. Bank shares performed extremely well, with all stocks climbing up. And the two listed securities brokerages were both up. Heavyweight blue chips including China Unicom and Sinopec were also strong, lifting up the whole market.

B shares ended up as well. Of the 109 B shares listed on the two exchanges, 97 surged this morning. Hainan Pearl River Holdings surged 10.03 percent to lead the others on the B-share ranking list.

The resurgence of Chinese stocks in the past six trading days in a row has lifted some share prices back to the level before the stamp tax hike. By yesterday's closing, 257 stocks, accounting for 19.02 percent of all the stocks on the two exchanges, even exceeded their prices on May 29, when the stock index hit the 4,300 mark.

Of the 257 stocks, 37 companies in machinery and equipment manufacturing took the largest proportion, followed by those in non-ferrous metals and industrial chemicals. Growth in profits in the machinery and chemical industries and the price rises in the international market for metals make the three sectors the hotspot in the stock market.

Total market value of all securities listed on the two exchanges was 17.72 trillion yuan by yesterday's closing, close to the figure on May 30, the day following the stamp tax hike when the stocks plunged 6.5 percent.

The number of new A-share accounts opened on Monday came back to the 200,000 level, according to China Securities Depository and Clearing Co Ltd. There were 242,125 new investment accounts on June 11: 212,746 new A-share, 2,274 B-share and 27,105 fund accounts.

By June 11, there were 103.6 million investment accounts in the Chinese mainland, including 89.6 million A-share, 2.2 million B-share and 11.8 million fund accounts.

On the other side of the story, a large redemption by investors in an uncertain market in May depressed the combined assets of all qualified foreign institutional investor (QFII) funds for the first time in two years. The gross value of QFII funds shrank to US$5.76 billion in May, down US$900 million, or 12.8 percent, from a month before, according to Lipper, which tracks the performance of mutual funds.