China stocks slump as skittish investors pare risks

Hong Kong

AS global stocks rally to new records, one part of China's equity market is heading in the opposite direction.

The ChiNext index of small-cap shares plummeted 5.1 per cent on Monday, its biggest loss in seven months, extending its retreat this year to 16 per cent. That is worse than any of the 96 global benchmarks tracked by Bloomberg, and compares with a 10 per cent advance by the MSCI World Small Cap Index.