(Yicai Global) May 20 -- The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development has warned the four cities of Foshan, Suzhou, Dalian and Nanning that have reported high increases in housing prices in the past three months, Xinhua News Agency reported. The nation aims to control its ballooning property prices.

Four companies have exited the secondary market and nine stocks have been suspended this year, involving 1 million investment accounts, due to a tightening of delisting rules.

The seven-day annualized yield of Yuebao, China's largest money market fund under Alibaba, fell to 2.4649 percent, the lowest in 29 months.

Major indexes on Chinese mainland stock markets fell last week. The Shanghai Composite Index dropped 1.9 percent to 2,882.30 points during the week. The Shenzhen Stock Exchange Composite Index declined 2.6 percent to 9,000.19 points. Shenzhen's Growth Enterprise Market slid 3.6 percent to 1,478.75 points.

Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings, China's two rivaling tech giants, released quarterly reports, with the former boosting its profit much more. Alibaba more than tripled its net profit to CNY25.8 billion (USD3.7 billion) while Tencent, partly hindered by slow approvals of its new game releases, logged a 17 percent increase to CNY27.2 billion.

Global index provider MSCI announced that it will increase the weighting of Chinese large-cap stocks to 10 percent from 5 percent on May 28, aiming for a quadrupled weighting by November. The number of Chinese firms represented will be 264 at the end of this month.

Brexit woes have weighed on the exchange rate of the British pound against the euro, logging a 10-day decline, the longest period since December 2000. The rate approached 1.27 during the week, nearing the lowest level since the beginning of this year.

Chinese consumption data for April was out and inferred steady growth. The industrial added value of big Chinese firms increased 5.4 percent from a year ago in April, according to official data. The figure rose 6.5 percent from the previous year in the period from January to April. The total retail sales of consumer goods rose 7.2 percent over the year to CNY3 trillion (USD442.3 billion) in April.

Chinese stock markets added 1.5 million investors last month, totaling 152 million, according to clearinghouse data. The pace of growth was 58 percent over the year. 

Editor: Emmi Laine