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Stocks bounce back from earlier losses

(China Daily/Agencies)
Updated: 2008-10-14 09:09

China's stock market rebounded from early losses yesterday to close sharply higher, led by bank shares after US and European policy-makers said they would take fresh steps to try to resolve the financial crisis.

But the Chinese market, which had outperformed Asian markets as they tumbled late last week, underperformed them yesterday.

The Shanghai Composite Index ended up 3.65 percent at 2073.57 points, just off the day's high of 2074.47, after sagging as much as 3.45 percent in the morning. It plunged 12.78 percent last week.

Bank shares rose across Asia after the US government said at the weekend that it would inject capital directly into American banks, and European officials said governments would buy debt from banks. A 5-percent rise by US stock futures during Asian hours added to the optimism.

Buying in Chinese bank shares was also encouraged by the fact that they had dropped near levels where a government fund bought small amounts of shares in top banks late last month, as part of an official rescue plan for the market.

Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, the biggest bank, closed up 7.5 percent at 4.30 yuan amid talk that the government would soon buy its shares again, or had already done so.

"The rebound in bank shares has improved sentiment in the whole market," said Cheng Guanglang, analyst at Industrial Securities.

However, the Shanghai index underperformed the MSCI index of Asia-Pacific stocks outside Japan, which was up nearly 7 percent. The average premium of mainland-listed A shares over Hong Kong-listed H shares in the same Chinese companies hit six-month highs above 40 percent last week, and some investors feel uncomfortable with premiums at such high levels.

Many analysts believe the Chinese government, which launched a rescue plan for the market late last month, wants to keep the index from falling sharply below 2,000 points.

But analysts said that unless it became clear that global markets had finally bottomed, a pull-back by the Shanghai index to near the 22-month low of 1,802 points hit on Sept 18 would remain possible.

Turnover expanded yesterday because of a surge in the afternoon, although it remained modest compared to levels seen early this year; trade in Shanghai A shares rose to 41.8 billion yuan from Friday's 38.3 billion yuan ($5.59 billion). Rising Shanghai stocks outnumbered losers by 719 to 192.