China: Shares close up 4.74% as rebound continues

[SHANGHAI] Chinese shares closed up 4.74 per cent on Wednesday, as buying of heavyweight financial stocks fuelled a rebound from the biggest decline in over six years earlier in the week, dealers said.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index jumped 150.56 points to 3,323.61 on turnover of 473.8 billion yuan (US$76.2 billion) after gaining as much as 5.17 per cent in late afternoon trade. The rise marked the biggest since October 9, 2009, when the index surged 4.76 per cent.

The Shenzhen Composite Index, which tracks stocks on China's second exchange, gained 2.40 percent, or 35.45 points, to 1,512.29 on turnover of 317.7 billion yuan.

The Shanghai market started to recover Tuesday on better-than-expected economic growth figures and comments by the market regulator which denied that an ongoing crackdown on margin trading aimed to "suppress" a rally that sent the Shanghai market up more than 50 per cent in 2014.

On Monday, the Shanghai index had tumbled 7.70 per cent, its biggest fall since June 2008, after authorities moved to rein in risky margin trading business.

"The driving force of the rally hasn't changed and there are buying opportunities after the market correction," BOC International analyst Shen Jun told AFP.

"The economic figures released yesterday were not bad and they didn't seem to bring any unexpected negative news," he said.

China said Tuesday that the economy expanded 7.4 per cent last year, down from 7.7 per cent in 2013 and the weakest since 1990. But it beat the median forecast of 7.3 per cent in an AFP survey.

AFP