Economy

Markets

Industries

Insights

Reports

Events

Chinese shares fall 1.52% amid concerns about corporate profits

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-12-22 15:39

Chinese equities shed 1.52 percent on Monday, falling for the first time in six trading days, amid concerns about corporate profits in the fourth quarter this year.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index lost 30.71 points, or 1.52 percent, to 1,987.76. Shenzhen Component Index on the smaller Shenzhen Stock Exchange went down 143.71 points, or 1.93 percent to 7,295.12.

Combined turnover was 97.68 billion yuan ($14.28 billion). Losses outran gains by 500 to 358 in Shanghai, however, gains outnumbered losses by 441 to 288 in Shenzhen.

There were increasing pressures as investors were pessimistic about corporate profitability, analysts said. Listed companies would start to publish their fourth-quarter report next week.

Market heavyweights declined, leading the downward trend.

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the country's largest bank by assets, fell 1.05 percent to 3.78 yuan, Bank of China shed 1.26 percent to 3.13 yuan. China Ping An was down 5.31 percent to 28.73 yuan. PetroChina fell 1.44 percent to 10.92 yuan and Sinopec down 3.27 percent to 7.68 yuan.

Shares of property developers lowered despite weekend announcement of detailed measures to boost the real estate market.

China Vanke, the country's largest listed real estate firm, was down 4.92 percent to 7.34 yuan. Shares of the Poly Real Estate Group Co dropped 5.62 percent to 17.13 yuan.

However, stimulated by market talks that the government was to issue the third-generation (3G) telecommmunications operation licenses either this month or at the beginning of 2009, 3G-related shares gained.

China Unicom edged up 0.03 percent to 5.59 yuan. ZTE Corp, a leading telecom equipment manufacturer, rose 4.09 percent to 28.52 yuan.

Investors also worried that the trading of previous locked-up shares would create a glut, adding to the negative sentiment, analysts said.

About 15.3 billion shares would become tradable this week as their lock-up period expired, said Wind Info., a domestic financial data provider.

China started a program in 2005 to convert non-tradable shares into tradable stocks. And major shareholders of non-tradable stocks were subject to one or two years of lock-up.