Off the wire
• Roundup: Singapore stocks end down 0.34 pct  • New round of Libya peace talks to kick off in Morocco  • Sri Lankan gov't confident of defeating motion on PM  • New Zealand disabled candidate aiming to make history at UN  • Indian gov't orders Nestle India to withdraw all Maggi noodles products  • Int'l Conference on Ecological Civilization kicks off in Southern California  • British watchdog issues record fine to Lloyds over PPI complaints  • 2 metro trains collide in Rome, 12 people injured  • Weather forecast for world cities -- June 5  • 68 immigrants found in container in eastern England  
You are here: 　 Home

1st LD-Writethru: Locked money back, Chinese shares up

Xinhua, June 5, 2015 Adjust font size:

Chinese shares closed higher on Friday after diving sharply in the morning session, mainly propped up by capital re-entering the market following IPOs.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index jumped 1.54 percent to finish at 5,023.1 points, surpassing the 5,000-point psychological mark for the first time in over 7 years, which was widely anticipated by investors after the recent steady bull run.

Another major index, the Shenzhen Component Index, gained 0.85 percent to close at 17,649.09 points.

Total turnover on the two bourses expanded to 2.3 trillion yuan (375.93 billion U.S. dollars) from Thursday's 2.03 trillion yuan.

The rise was mainly attributed to the return of capital of more than 3 trillion yuan that had been locked up for the subscription of new shares since Tuesday.

The majority of sectors had stellar performance, with shares of more than 220 companies surging by the 10-percent maximum daily limit. The sub-index for construction and engineering jumped by over 5 percent, while the steel, non-ferrous metal and real estate sectors all went up by over 3 percent.

However, startups suffered despite the central government reiterated its support for innovation and entrepreneurship on Thursday evening. The ChiNext Index, tracking China's Nasdaq-style board of growth enterprises, lost 1.46 percent to end at 3,885.83 points.

Despite the rising trend, Chinese shares experienced a rollercoaster ride this week, with the daily change margin of major indices reaching 6 to 7 percent.

Sun Xiwei, an analyst with CITIC Securities, remained optimistic on long-term prospects and even forecast the benchmark index will finally hit the 6,000-percent mark again after nearly 8 years.

Likewise, individual investors retained fervor on the bullish market as the number of new trading accounts opened last week soared nearly 70 percent to 4.4 million.

But there will be temporary adjustments in the short term, Sun said, citing less-favorable factors including recently approved certificates of deposit and the next wave of IPO subscriptions.

Thanks to the bull run this year, China's stock market has become the world's second largest by capitalization and was included in an emerging markets exchange-traded fund of Vanguard Group, the world's largest provider of mutual funds, on Tuesday. Endi