By Ding Qi (Chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2007-08-17 17:27

Major Chinese Indices continued Thursday's plunge as more stocks joined the dive due to investor concerns about possible monetary tightening measures this weekend.

Affected by Thursday's decline, the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index opened at 4733.14 points, 30 points lower than Thursday's close. Although struggling just above 4,800-point level in the morning session, the index failed to maintain gains afterward and turned down toward the end of trading. Closing at 4,656.57 points, the index concluded the week's transaction with a 2.28 percent loss for the day.

Shanghai Composite Index Source: www.sina.com.cn

Shenzhen Component Index Source: www.sina.com.cn

The Shenzhen Component Index, covering the smaller Shenzhen market, also took in big loss of 2.27 percent and closed at 15,689 points.

The combined trading value of the two markets reached 207.3 billion yuan, close to Thursday's figure, but few stocks were as lucky as they had been yesterday. Of all stocks traded today, only 510 gained, while 966 closed flat or lower than last day.

Notably, the US dollar-denominated B-share market of Shanghai suffered a huge loss of 4.5 percent, with 90 percent of the B shares ending in deficits. Analysts said the drastic fluctuation was largely due to the relatively small scale of the market.

After considerable gains in the past weeks, the financial sector, together with some heavy weight blue chips, were among the biggest losers of the day. China Merchants Bank dove 5.48 percent to 33.09 yuan per share. Shares of Yangtze Power Co, operator of the world's biggest hydropower project, declined for a second day and closed at 18.38 yuan.

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