Chinese stocks end mixed

Chinese stocks were mixed on Friday as the main index held technical support and blue chips, particularly banks and oil giant Sinopec, partially recovered after plunging on Thursday. The Shanghai Composite Index, which tumbled 4.80 percent on Thursday in its biggest drop since early July, slipped as much as 1.80 percent on Friday morning.
But rebounded to close 0.49 percent higher at 5,589.631 points. Losing Shanghai stocks marginally outnumbered gainers by 430 to 412, while turnover in Shanghai A shares shrank to 86.5 billion yuan ($11.6 billion) - its lowest since mid-July - from Thursday's 118.3 billion.
The index fell 3.9 percent this week, its worst week since July. Traders said that was largely because of a liquidity squeeze due to subscriptions to PetroChina's massive Shanghai IPO, which ended on Friday. PetroChina appeared to attract a record amount of money and this sent short-term money market rates soaring to multi-year highs, making it hard for small securities firms to obtain funds.
One desperate securities company was seen selling a two-year government bond on Friday at a yield of 3.8 percent, far higher than the indicative market quote of 3.52 percent bid. Cash-short securities firms appeared to conduct some similar forced selling of stocks.
On Friday the index tested and held on a closing basis technical support around 5,500 points, where a couple of gaps on the daily chart roughly coincide with the late September peaks.
Sinopec, which slumped 6.69 percent on Thursday in response to a lower-than-expected pricing of PetroChina's IPO, climbed 2.64 percent to 24.90 yuan on Friday as some mutual funds resumed buying it, traders said.
Shandong Nanshan Industrial rose 2.79 percent to 30.98 yuan after saying it would spend about A$5 million to buy a stake in Australia's Gulf Alumina to secure a supply of bauxite.
Dongfeng Automobile Co surged 4.19 percent to 7.70 yuan after saying third-quarter net profit rose 40 percent. Yangtze Power Co, which said third-quarter net profit nearly doubled, was up 1.89 percent to 19.95 yuan.
But China COSCO tumbled its 10 percent daily limit to 57.26 yuan on what traders said was profit-taking, wiping out gains over the previous two days triggered by shareholder approval for a share placement that will finance the purchase of major assets from its parent. Another surge of global oil prices to a record high above $91 a barrel on Friday hit airline shares, with Air China down 4.09 percent to 20.19 yuan.