Shanghai shares fall 1.43% to end below 3,300 level
Big cap A shares lost steam today and dragged the key Shanghai stock index to close at a half-year low.
The Shanghai composite index shed 1.43 percent, or 47.21 points, to close at 3,262.05, dragged by a 2.7 percent fall in the SSE 50 Index, a gauge of the 50 most valuable companies on the Shanghai exchange.
The SSE 50 gauge surged 26 percent in 2017 to rank as the best performer among China’s major equity indexes.
Banks, insurers, coal and oil producers were among the worst performers on the SSE 50 Index today, with the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China down by 4.35 percent and the Agricultural Bank of China losing 3.36 percent.
Investors did not buy the argument put forward by China Securities News and Securities Times that the fundamentals remained solid and the valuations of blue chips were relatively low compared with other major markets, according to a South China Morning Post report.