Brokerages fare well as bulls tighten grip

Earnings of mainland-listed securities firms surged as stock market turnover multiplied in March, and the sector may see further improvements later this year, analysts said.

Thirty-six of the pure-play mainland-listed securities firms saw healthy improvement in their monthly earnings for March, with total profits rising 54 percent on an annual basis to 16.05 billion yuan ($2.39 billion) and by 57 percent from the levels seen in February, according to data compiled by the Zhengzhou, Henan province-based Central China Securities.

Four brokerages - Huatai Securities, Guotai Junan Securities, CITIC Securities and Haitong Securities - saw their profits cross 1 billion yuan in March and account for 37 percent of the whole sector.