Chinese markets sink in last session of Year of the Pig

Chinese stock indexes tumbled on the last trading day of the Year of the Pig, with only a handful of medical and pharmaceutical shares posting gains.

By the close of market hours, the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index had shed 2.75 percent to 2,976.53 points. The smaller Shenzhen Component Index plummeted 3.52 percent to 10,681.90 points. The blue chip CSI300 index declined 3.1 percent to 4,003.90 points.

Turnover on the two bourses totalled 809.03 billion yuan (US$116.9 billion) amidst losses to all sectors.

Agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery stocks as well as the electronics industry, communications operators and securities companies suffered the biggest losses, all of which slumped over 4 percent.

The medical and pharmaceutical sectors took the least of the day's brunt, falling by 0.78 percent and 1.2 percent respectively. Some individual components, however, escaped with gains: Beijing Hotgen Biotech Co Ltd, Zhende Medical Co Ltd and Shandong Lukang Pharmaceutical Co Ltd all climbed by the daily limit of 10 percent.

During the Year of the Pig, major stock indexes all performed strongly. Shanghai Composite Index rose 13.67 percent in total, Shenzhen Component Index gained 39.02 percent and the ChiNext Composite Index added 51.69 percent.

On the STAR Market, the day's top gainers also belonged to the medical and pharmaceutical industries. Two newly listed companies, Shenzhen Neoway Technology Co Ltd and Suzhou Zelgen Biopharmaceuticals Co Ltd, rallied 178.18 percent and 120.94 percent respectively.