Trading on China’s new stock market catering to smaller companies will begin Oct. 23, the chairman of the country’s securities regulator said Saturday.

The Growth Enterprises Market is meant to nurture private companies that struggle to get financing in a system favoring big state enterprises.

Shang Fulin said the first day of the new board will see an initial batch of 28 companies listed and available for trading, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

© Liu Yong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: securities, stock markets
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

China’s benchmark stock index fell the most in nine months as foreign direct investment plunged, Ping An Insurance (Group) Co.’s profit missed estimates and Yunnan Copper Industry Co. said there are “no clear signs” of a recovery.

Ping An, the nation’s second-biggest insurance company, fell 3.9 percent after first-half net income dropped 45 percent. Yunnan Copper sank the 10 percent daily limit after posting a first-half loss and the metal dropped by the maximum in Shanghai. Foreign direct investment fell 35.7 percent in July as companies stalled expansion plans amid the global financial crisis.

The Shanghai Composite Index, tracking the bigger of China’s exchanges, fell 176.34, or 5.8 percent, to 2,870.63 at the close, the worst day since Nov. 18 and the lowest since June 18. The gauge has declined 17 percent from this year’s high on Aug. 4 on concern a slump in exports and new loans will damp economic growth. It remains 58 percent higher this year.

© Liu Yong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: securities, stock markets
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

The middle-aged crowd in the packed Guosen Securities office jostle around buzzing printers that spit out receipts for their share buys, hoping to cash in on China’s stimulus-fueled stock market boom.

“The central government has to fulfill their promise of 8 percent economic growth,” said Wu Jun, 62, a retired civil servant who invested part of his life savings of 50,000 yuan ($7,300) and lives on a 2,000 yuan-a-month ($290 a month) pension. “They’ll come up with measures to keep the market in good shape.”

But while investors expect the market — up more than 80 percent this year — to keep rising, Chinese leaders are alarmed. They worry that too much of the $1 trillion lending binge by state banks that paid for China’s nascent revival was diverted into stocks and real estate, raising the danger of a boom and bust cycle and higher inflation less than two years after an earlier stock market bubble burst.

© Liu Yong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: economic stimulus plan, lending, stock markets
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

China’s first two companies to go public in nine months surged on their trading debuts, triggering stock suspensions under a new system aimed at curbing speculation.

Guilin Sanjin Pharmaceutical Co. and Zhejiang Wanma Cable Co. were halted on the Shenzhen exchange after jumping 20 percent from their opening prices. Both stocks resumed trading after a 30-minute suspension.

The gains underscore demand for new equity in a nation where households wield $3.6 trillion in bank savings and cast doubt on the effectiveness of the government’s attempts to prevent excessive first-day price swings. The China Securities Regulatory Commission halted initial public offerings in September and revised pricing rules last month, after companies that went public in 2008 gained an average 152 percent on debut.

© Liu Yong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: IPO, stock markets
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

China’s shares edged up Friday to a new one-year high on optimism about a possible economic revival, with real estate and dairies up but banks and metals mixed.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index climbed 1.67 points, or 0.05 percent, to close at 3,061.93, its highest level since June 10, 2008. For the week, it rose 3 percent.

The Shenzhen Composite Index for China’s second, smaller market rose 1.38 percent, or 13.66 points, to 1,000.68.

© Liu Yong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: stock markets
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Fueled by renewed confidence in economic growth in China and perhaps the kind of frenzied buying that took place a few years ago, Chinese stock prices are once again soaring.

The Shanghai composite index rose 52 points Thursday, to close at 3,060.25, putting the index up 68 percent this year.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index fell slightly Thursday after ending its best quarter in 15 years on Tuesday. That index is up about 20 percent for 2009.

Though well off their 2007 highs, Chinese stock markets are again among the world’s best performing this year.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: economic recovery, financial crisis 2009, stock markets
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

When the outlandish stock-market events of 2009 are tallied up, the initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong of Chinese herbal shampoo maker Bawang International will be a standout. Within 10 minutes of the June 22 opening of the subscription period for shares, one local brokerage, Bright Smart Securities, was swamped with the equivalent of $129 million in orders. In all, the shampoo company received more than $9 billion in orders from Hong Kong retail investors for an IPO that initially sought to raise just $215 million.

Such examples of excessive investor ardor for new Chinese stocks aren’t hard to find. Shares of Chinese water-treatment-equipment supplier Duoyuan Global Water soared 37% on June 24, its first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Back in Hong Kong, Chinese thenardite producer Lumena Resources (thenardite is a key ingredient in powder detergents, textiles, glass, chemical feedstock and pharmaceuticals) rang up 19% in gains on June 17. On June 22, the IPO of China Metal Recycling closed 22% higher.

© Liu Yong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: IPOs, stock markets
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

China’s securities regulator has issued new rules reforming initial public equity offers, paving the way for an immediate resumption of a backlog of stock IPOs that had been halted since last September.

More than 30 companies, including Everbright Securities, a top-10 brokerage, and China State Construction Engineering Corp, the biggest home builder, have won regulatory approval and have been waiting for up to a year to go public after a slumping stock market in 2008 spurred the regulator to quietly suspend IPOs last autumn.

An IPO resumption could push at least 100 billion yuan ($15 billion) in new shares onto the market this year, according to Reuters calculations based on the waiting list, but China’s stock market has generally been rising after the regulator hinted in late May that it would soon resume such offerings.

© Liu Yong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: IPO, stock markets
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

The top Chinese securities regulator warned Monday that the country’s stock markets lacked long- term stability and required significant reforms, despite a sustained rally over the past year that has lifted valuations on both the country’s bourses to unprecedented levels.

Chinese stocks surged to another record high Monday, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index gaining 3.6 percent to close at 2,933.19 because of strong buying of retailers and transportation shares. The smaller Shenzhen Composite Index jumped 4.2 percent to 700.20, also a record close.

In a speech published on the front page of the Shanghai Securities News, Shang Fulin, head of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, said that the recent “positive change” in the Chinese stock market was only preliminary.[Full Text]

© Mo Ming for China Digital Times (CDT), 2007. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: investment, stock markets
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

China has agreed to allow the Nasdaq Stock Market and the New York Stock Exchange to open formal business offices in China, Finance Minister Jin Renqing announced Friday.

Jin did not give a timetable for opening the offices or any other details. The announcement came after two days of high-level talks with U.S. officials.

Dozens of Chinese companies have listed shares on the Nasdaq and NYSE Group Inc.’s New York Stock Exchange, and both are eager for business as China’s economy booms.[Full Text]

© Mo Ming for China Digital Times (CDT), 2006. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Nasdaq, NYSE, stock markets
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall