China stocks trade lower after higher opening
China’s A-share markets closed lower on Friday after going through a volatile day. Most sectors suffered losses, with agricultural and communications stocks among the big losers.
Led by the overnight robust performance on the Wall Street, A-shares opened higher but reversed their early gains later. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index shed 0.71 percent to finish at 2,774.75.
The smaller Shenzhen Component Index slipped by 1.39 percent to close at 8,795.18 points, while the ChiNext Index edged down 1 percent to finish at 1,507.71 points.
The combined turnover of the two bourses came to 380.6 billion yuan (US$53.86 billion), compared with the previous trading day’s volume of 367.1 billion yuan.
Sectors mostly declined, with sub-index of agricultural and communications industries down more than 3 percent. Shares of ZTE Corporation, a Shenzhen-based global leader in telecommunications and information technology, tumbled by 7.74 percent.
China’s consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose 2.8 percent from a year ago in July, with food prices and non-food items jumping 9.1 percent and 1.3 percent, respectively, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Friday.
In particular, pork prices rose 27 percent year on year in the past month and fresh fruit prices increased 39.1 percent, according to the data.
Meanwhile, the country’s producer price index, a gauge of corporate profitability, fell 0.3 percent in July from a year ago, marking the first-time fall in three years.
Also on Friday, Chinese tech giant Huawei launched its own operating system HarmonyOS. The system can be used across different devices from smartphones to smart speakers and even sensors, said Richard Yu, CEO of the company’s consumer division, at the Huawei Developer Conference held in the city of Dongguan, Guangong Province.
Analysts said that big-caps currently were in lack of momentum for bounce back and advised investors to keep calm.