China's Stock Markets Close Near Intraday Low
Tang Shihua
DATE:  Feb 15 2019
/ SOURCE:  yicai

 (Yicai Global) Feb.15 -- China's stock markets closed near their intraday low today.
 

Uncertainty surrounding the results of China-US high level trade talks and less-than-ideal inflationary data weighed as twin millstones on major indexes.
 

It was a tale of two markets for most of the day, with profit-taking pressure and disappointing latest economic data dragging down big caps, after a strong post-holiday rally.But speculative buying to the tech-heavy small caps kept the tech-heavy  ChiNext Price Index positive until the last half hour of trading.
 

The Shanghai Composite Index closed 1.37 percent lower at 2,682.39 points, while the Shenzhen Component Index fell 1.15 percent to 8,125.63. The ChiNext Price Index, which tracks growth enterprises in Shenzhen, closed 0.30 percent lower at 1,357.84.
 

High-level China-US trade talks are set to conclude later today. Notwithstanding positive signs that these discussions may bear fruit, until they go down to the wire no certainty exists of a breakthrough that will defuse a trade war between the world's two economic superpowers, which is why the market became so antsy toward the end of the week.
 

China's producer price index shrinking to a 28-month nadir also gave investors good grounds to wipe their slates clean for the upcoming week's fray.
 

China's Consumer Price Index CPI for January rose 1.7 percent annually, while the PPI, a gauge of industrial profitability, rose only 0.1 percent from a year earlier, the lowest reading over the past 28 months, the latest data the country's National Bureau of Statistics released today show.
 

The number of downward moving sectors far exceeded the upwardly mobile, and financials such as banking, insurance and stock brokering were among the worst performers of the day, with auto and home appliance makers and property developers also lagging.
 

Light-emitting diode and organic LED displayer-related stocks continued to lure buyers even after huge gains during the market's post-holiday rally, with the expectation that the world's first flexible smartphone will soon hit the market driving speculators to hop aboard that bandwagon despite the market's overall slide.

Regardless of outcome, the trade dialog is bound to unleash another flurry of activity next week as investors either retrench or foray in quest of fresh spoils.

Editor: Ben Armour

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Keywords:   Stock Market,Shanghai Composite Index, Shenzhen Component Index,ChiNext Price Index