Chinese stocks retreat amid reduced trading

China’s A-share market closed lower on Monday amid thin trading, with companies in the electronics and communications sector leading the losses.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index shed 0.49 percent to finish at 2,783.05 point after a lower opening.

The smaller Shenzhen Component Index lost 0.73 percent to close at 10,223.16, while the ChiNext Index declined 1.37 percent to finish at 1,923.08 points.

Combined turnover on the two bourses came to 499 billion yuan (US$70.68 billion), compared with the previous trading day’s volume of 672.9 billion yuan.

Across the board, most sectors posted weak performances. Electronics and communications companies were among the top losers. Ronbay Technology (Ningbo Ronbay Lithium Battery Material Co Ltd), a high-tech new-energy material enterprise saw its shares slip by the daily limit of 10 percent to around 27 yuan.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission plans to maintain a steady pace in greenlighting the applications of initial public offerings (IPO) in order to ensure stable market operations, according to reports from caixin.com over the weekend.

The IPO move will be conducive to supporting the improvement of corporate earnings as well as the medium and long-term development of the A-share market, Wu Chaoming, chief economist at Chasing Securities, was quoted as saying by caixin.com.

Wu also predicted that domestic oil and gas related stocks might be lifted as a result of the recent oil price spike.

On Monday, OPEC and its allies, known collectively as OPEC+, finalized an agreement to cut production by 9.7 million barrels per day, the single largest output cut in history.