Chinese shares fell 1.2 percent on Wednesday after hitting a series of five-year peaks over the past week, as investors took profits in index heavyweights which had boosted the market in the previous days.
The benchmark Shanghai composite index, which had risen for past three trading days, finished at 1,866.817 points. It came off a high of 1889.530 points on Tuesday, its highest closing level since August 2001, and the 1.2 percent drop was the biggest decline since October 23. Turnover in Shanghai A-shares was moderate at 21.8 billion yuan ($2.8 billion), down 31 percent from Tuesday's 31.5 billion.
Baoshan Iron and Steel Co ended down 1.23 percent at 5.62 yuan. The blue chip had jumped 26 percent since it posted better-than-expected third-quarter earnings on October 27. "Sharp rises in the previous sessions led to profit-taking, but this should not hurt the general bullish trend in the medium term," said analyst Chen Jinren at Huatai Securities.
Many analysts said they expected the index, which had risen more than 60 percent since the start of this year, to rise another 7 percent to reach 2,000 points by the end of this year. Technical charts show a strong index uptrend from early August, suggesting this is a reasonable expectation as Chinese investors cheered government market reforms such as encouraging large, high-quality companies to list on domestic bourses.
Nineteen of China's 100 largest capitalised stocks gained more than 20 percent since October 24, outperforming a less than 5 percent gain in the index in the same period, according to state media and Reuters calculations. Industrial and Commercial Bank of China fell 1.18 percent to 3.36 yuan. Its Hong Kong-listed shares ended at HK$3.56 on Wednesday, meaning the A-shares were still at a discount of 7 percent to the H-shares.
China Merchants Bank, which dipped 1.4 percent to 11.26 yuan, was at a discount of 14 percent to its H-shares, which ended at HK$12.98. Pudong Development Bank lost 2.71 percent to 13.98 yuan . New Huangpu Real Estate Co dropped 2.14 percent to 4.58 yuan.
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