Stock market swings during the two sessions

The Chinese stock market bounced up and down the past 10 days with unusual vigor as investors tried to digest information, comments and rumors from the annual two sessions of legislators and political advisors.

Investors' spirit was whipped to a feverish pitch before the session opened by speculation from economists, stock analysts and a host of commentators that the central government was going to top up its economic stimulus package.

On March 4, a day before Premier Wen Jiabao was scheduled to deliver his annual Government Work Report to the National People's Congress, the benchmark index surged 6.12 percent to close at 2198.11 points.

But disappointment, which later appeared to be based on a less-than-thorough understanding of the premier's speech, sucked the momentum out of the market, making it listless for several days.

Investors then became concerned about economic data due to be released, resulting in a nearly 4 percent dive in the Shanghai Composite Index on Monday, March 9. It closed at 2,118 points, with blue-chip stocks leading the slump.

But share prices rebounded smartly the next day on news of a healthy growth in new loans in February. The index rose nearly 2 percent to 2158.57 points.The recovery was short-lived. On the following day, depressed export figures for February, showing a fall of 28.7 percent from a year earlier, sent the index down about 1 percent.

"It's going to be very difficult for China to shake off the global recession," said Fraser Howie, a Singapore-based managing director at CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets. "China has become increasingly integrated with the international trading system so you can't expect it to stand independent of global forces."

The market stabilized on Friday with the index falling a slight 0.24 percent to close at 2128.85 points.

"The market demonstrated its underlying strength during the two sessions, though few new positive policies were announced," said Wang Zhenqian, an analyst with Jianyuan Securities Company.

Many analysts see strong resistance ahead for the index between 2300 points and 2400 points, where it peaked in February and strong technical support around 2000 points, where it encountered resistance in late December and January.

(China Daily 03/16/2009 page4)