SHANGHAI: China stocks edged up slightly on Tuesday after seesawing in thin trade, with investor sentiment remaining subdued due to sluggish economic recovery and limited stimulus support, while regional markets rebounded following a panic sell-off.
Both the CSI 300 Index and the Shanghai Composite index closed 0.3% higher, while still lingering around the lowest level in half a year.
Asian stocks rose, led by Japanese shares on a steady yen, ahead of US economic data that would help investors gauge the Federal Reserve’s policy outlook.
The US producer and consumer prices numbers are due on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively, while a global central bankers’ meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming is scheduled in late August. China will also release a flurry of indicators this week, including credit and economic activity data, which is likely to show that the economy got off to a weak start in the second half of the year. “China has been a tough trade for funds with global mandates and has underperformed drastically over the past few years,” said Augustine Fan, head of insights at fintech firm SOFA.org.
“The markets need a strong catalyst to reverse the bearish trend, but they have yet to see a compelling one even out of the recent plenum.” China reported weaker-than-expected second-quarter economic growth last week, and recent economic indicators also did not show a big improvement.
“It’ll be hard for allocators to deploy significantly into China at this stage until the facts on the ground can see a material change,” Fan said.
China’s financial sector sub-index ended higher by 0.55%, while the consumer staples sector went down 0.88% and the real estate index fell 0.3%.
The smaller Shenzhen index ended up 0.5% and the start-up board ChiNext Composite index was higher by 0.929%.
At the close of trade, the Hang Seng index was up 62.41 points or 0.36% at 17,174.06. The Hang Seng China Enterprises index rose 0.33% to 6,049.41.
The sub-index of the Hang Seng tracking energy shares rose 1%, while the IT sector rose 0.56%, the financial sector ended 0.21% higher and the property sector dipped 0.04%.