China: Stocks rise for 9th session to near 7-year highs

[SHANGHAI] China stocks rose for their ninth straight session on Monday, closing at fresh near seven-year highs, as bullish investors chased stocks after regulators said the market's recent rally is "inevitable and rational." Deng Ke, spokesman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) told a news conference late on Friday that the rise in stock prices was a reflection of ample liquidity and improvement in corporate earnings, and that healthy market development was good for economic restructuring.

Property stocks jumped on signs of policy easing for the ailing sector, while a 44 per cent surge in the debut shares of Orient Securities fanned buying interest in brokerage stocks.

ChiNext, the Nasdaq-style board for high-growth start-ups, jumped 3.7 per cent to record highs, despite their lofty valuations. Shares on the board currently trade at nearly 90 times their earnings on average.

The CSI300 index of the largest listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen rose 2.0 per cent, to 3,972.06 points, while the Shanghai Composite Index also gained 2.0 per cent, to 3,687.73 points.

Among the most active stocks in Shanghai were Bank Of China , up 1.1 per cent to 4.43 yuan; Agricultural Bank of China, up 1.4 per cent to 3.61 yuan and GD Power, up 4.9 per cent to 4.49 yuan.

In Shenzhen, BOE Technology, up 2.5 per cent to 4.04 yuan; TCL Corp, up 1.4 per cent to 5.97 yuan and Panggang Group Vanadium Titanium & Resourced Co, up 7.4 per cent to 4.07 yuan were among the most actively traded.

Total volume of A shares traded in Shanghai was 53.5 billion shares, while Shenzhen volume was 32.2 billion shares.

REUTERS