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Chinese stocks sink 4.47 pct amid global turmoil
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-09-16 20:00 BEIJING -- Chinese shares plunged 4.47 percent amid global financial turmoil on Tuesday, as investors reacted to losses on Wall Street and the People's Bank of China's (PBOC) decision to slash interest rates.
The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index lost 93.03 points, sinking below the 2,000-point mark to close at 1,986.64. It touched an intra-day low of 1,974.39 late in the afternoon. The Shenzhen Component Index closed at 6,873.61 points, down 61.46 points, or 0.89 percent. Aggregate turnover was just 47.41 billion yuan (about 6.87 billion US dollars). Losses outnumbered gains by 1,328 to 325, while 186 stocks were unchanged. Banks, securities firms and insurers led the plunge. The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China fell 9.95 percent to 3.8 yuan and the China Construction Bank sank 9.94 percent to 4.26 yuan. Northeast Securities lost 6.87 percent to 14.92 yuan. The heavy-weight financial sector was hurt by a weekend of upheaval among US financial institutions and the global market reaction on Monday, when the Chinese market was closed for a national holiday. After Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch agreed to be taken over by Bank of America, the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 4.42 percent, the steepest drop since the September 11, 2001 attacks. The Dow's plunge triggered a global equities downturn, with Japan's Nikkei Index falling 4.95 percent and the market in Taipei losing 4.88 percent on Tuesday. Qin Xiaobin, an analyst with the Beijing-based Yinhe Securities, said the plunge was unexpected and the 1,974.39 close was the lowest since November, 2006. He attributed the plunge to the lending interest rate cut announced by the Chinese central bank, investors' lingering concern over the country's economy and the financial turmoil in the United States. |
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