China's shares dipped 0.14 percent on Friday as investors exited liquor makers such as Kweichow Moutai, brushing aside new policies aimed at helping the country's crucial but loss-making brokerages. The benchmark Shanghai composite index, grouping foreign-currency B shares and local-currency A shares, inched down 0.14 percent to 1,302.949 points.
Kweichow Moutai Co Ltd, maker of China's Maotai rice wine, legendary within the country for its fiery taste, was the morning's top decliner. It dived 6 percent to 36 yuan after having outperformed the index during a seven-month slump.
The company has long been one of China's most profitable firms. Its yuan-dominated A shares, open to select foreign investors, are among the highest-priced in absolute terms of the country's nearly 1,400 counters.
"Selling in expensive shares, such as Kweichow Moutai, overwhelmed fresh signs of government support for the stock market," said Hu Weitao, an analyst at Eagle Securities.
"But the index has no potential to fall sharply again amid mounting evidence the government wants stocks to perform well."
Analysts said they expected the index to continue to move in a tight range in coming days as investors awaited fresh leads.
On Friday, Yibin Wuliangye, another top Chinese wine maker, edged down 0.3 percent to 7.14 yuan by midday.
Beijing has recently taken a slew of steps to support the depressed stock markets and many more are in the pipeline, industry sources and analysts say.
On Friday, regulators published rules that widened the scope for brokerages to use stocks as collateral to obtain bank loans.
Several major government departments, including the Ministry of Finance, reassured investors Beijing would buy up the vast majority of individual investments pooled at securities houses if brokers met with trouble.
Still, the key index has fallen 26.7 percent since early April, when official credit curbs and other measures to cool a racing economy first took hold.
In the latest tightening step, the central People's Bank of China raised interest rates for the first time in nine years.