Economy

Markets

Industries

Insights

Reports

Events

Chinese stocks close 1.25% higher on month's first trading day

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-12-01 16:17

Chinese equities closed 1.25 percent higher on Monday, led by gains in shares of manufacturers of electrical equipment and home appliance.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index the month's first trading day at 1,894.62 points, up 1.25 percent or 23.46 points. The Shenzhen Component Index rose 1.58 percent, or 105.46 points, to close at 6,763.97.

Gainers outnumbered losers by 830 to 34 in Shanghai and by 713 to 24 in Shenzhen. Combined turnover was up to 78.5 billion yuan ($11.5 billion).

Shares of electrical equipment manufacturers led the gains. Over 40 shares rose 2.38 percent on average. Seven of the shares including Macro and Huayi jumped by the daily 10 percent limit.

Gains of home appliance shares also contributed to the higher indices. The sector, with 30 listed companies, surged 1.29 percent as a whole. Over 10 stocks, such as Midea, TCL and Changhong jumped by the daily 10 percent limit.

Market analysts said home appliance makers were expected to benefit from a government decision to subsidize farmers in their purchasing home appliance.

On Sunday, the Chinese government said it would offer a 13 percent subsidy to farmers buying designated brands of TV sets, refrigerators, mobile phones and washing machines at capped prices of 2,000, 2,500, 1,000 and 2,000 yuan, respectively.

Shares of securities firms ended mixed with six gainers and two losers, though they were allowed to apply to offer margin trading as of Monday.

Hongyuan Securities posted the largest gain by rising 4.4 percent to close at 13.75 yuan per share. Changjiang Securities shed 4.63 percent to 10.3 yuan.

Insurers put up poor performance and dragged down the indices in the day. Heavyweight China Life, the nation's leading life insurer fell 1.7 percent to 18.48 yuan, while Ping An Insurance gained slightly by 0.36 percent to close at 22.57 yuan.

Despite higher closing in the day, analysts said investors were still very concerned that more than 23.3 billion shares would become tradable this month as their lock-up period ended. Such a volume was the second largest this year, only after that in August, which saw about 27.55 billion shares being unlocked and traded.

China started a program in 2005 to convert non-tradable shares into tradable stocks. And major shareholders of non-tradable stocks were subject to a two-year lock-up.

Last month, the benchmark index rose 8.24 percent, the biggest monthly increase since August last year.