China stocks surrendered early gains on Thursday as traders took profits after the central bank unveiled its latest stimulus measures. The CSI300 index of the largest listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen fell 1.0 percent, to 3,366.95, while the Shanghai Composite Index lost 1.2 percent, to 3,136.53 points.
"The recent low volumes of trade and decreasing number of new accounts being opened both indicate that capital inflows into the stock market are down because of the recent crackdowns on margin trading," said Li Zheming, an analyst at Datong Securities in Dalian. "This lack of capital inflows has impacted the stock market's ability to rise today," said Li. The market was up until near the end of Thursday's session, aided by the central bank's cut in the reserve requirement ratios for banks.
The property sub-index ended down 0.8 percent after opening up 3.4 percent, and the financial sub-index finished 0.4 percent off after gaining 4.4 percent at the start. The NASDAQ-like ChiNex composite, which has been moving in the opposite direction to large caps, ended up 0.9 percent. Among the most active stocks in Shanghai were Bank Of China , unchanged at 4.13 yuan; Agricultural Bank of China , down 1.2 percent to 3.32 yuan and ICBC, down 0.2 percent to 4.40 yuan.
In Shenzhen, Suning Commerce, up 1.3 percent to 11.55 yuan; Vanke, down 0.8 percent to 12.70 yuan and Huawen Media, up 5.0 percent to 14.75 yuan were among the most actively traded. Foreign investment flowing into Shanghai from Hong Kong through the mutual market access pilot programme took up 3.81 billion yuan of the 13 billion yuan daily quota. Total volume of A shares traded in Shanghai was 30.6 billion shares, while Shenzhen volume was 17.6 billion shares.