China: Stocks falter as investors sell manufacturing shares

[SHANGHAI] China stocks closed down on Wednesday, reversing earlier gains as investors sold off shares in manufacturing, in light trading volumes, as a long stock market rally shows signs of losing steam.

The financial and bank sub-indexes closed slightly up but most other industries fell, with some manufacturing subindexes dropping by nearly 5 percent.

The CSI300 index of the largest listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen fell 0.3 per cent, to 3,502.42, while the Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.4 per cent, to 3,222.44 points.

Among the most active stocks in Shanghai were Bank Of China, up 3.6 per cent to 4.60 yuan; Agri Bank Of China, up 1.9 per cent to 3.73 yuan and ICBC , up 1.5 per cent to 4.89 yuan.

In Shenzhen, BOE Technology, down 2.5 per cent to 3.19 yuan; Guosen Securities, up 10.0 per cent to 21.79 yuan and TCL Corp, down 2.0 per cent to 3.93 yuan were among the most actively traded.

Foreign investment flowing into Shanghai from Hong Kong through the mutual market access pilot programme took up 0.72 billion yuan of the 13 billion yuan daily quota.

Total volume of A shares traded in Shanghai was 24.0 billion shares, while Shenzhen volume was 12.2 billion shares.

REUTERS