China stocks edged higher on Tuesday, though gains rooted in consumer and financial firms were pared as shares of new energy auto firms succumbed to profit-taking late in the session. The blue-chip CSI300 index rose 0.3 percent, to 3,837.93 points, while the Shanghai Composite Index added 0.1 percent to 3,379.49 points.
China's new-energy auto firms reversed hefty earlier gains on Tuesday, with an index tracking new energy vehicles (NEVs) ending down 0.2 percent, after jumping as much as 4.5 percent to a record high. Real estate firms continued to weigh on the market, while consumer and financial shares
led gains, closing up 1 percent and 0.6 percent respectively. Helping some sectors were expectations of solid profit growth in the third quarter. Nearly 1,000 China-listed companies have put out preliminary reports forecasting a rise in third-quarter profits, China Securities Journal said. Zhou Yu, strategist at Pacific Securities, said he expects upstream sectors including steel, coal, non-ferrous metal and petrol could continue to attract buying interest in light of steady gains in profitability.