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1st LD-Writethru: China stocks decline as investors remain cautious

Xinhua, August 6, 2015 Adjust font size:

Chinese stocks continued to drop on Thursday as investors took a wait-and-see attitude, as shown by the lightest trading volume in more than four months.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index, which tracks the performance of most market heavyweights, dropped 0.89 percent to close at 3,661.54 points, following a 1.65-percent decline on Wednesday.

Turnover on the Shanghai bourse shrank from Wednesday's 484 billion yuan (156.92 billion U.S. dollars) to 357.5 billion yuan, marking the slightest trading since March 11, 2015.

This is not surprising. New stock accounts opened last week dropped 13 percent from the previous week to 340,500, according to data from the China Securities Depository and Clearing Corporation.

Only 30.11 percent of all stock accounts traded shares last week, down from 31.38 percent a week ago.

Gao Xiang, an analyst with CITIC Securities, said the slump in daily turnover showed most investors decided to wait and see after sharp plunges since mid-June.

The smaller Shenzhen Component Index fell 0.82 percent to close at 12,421.85. The ChiNext Index, tracking China's Nasdaq-style board of growth enterprises, dropped 0.84 percent to end at 2,480.93.

In breakdown, the property sector and financial sector were among the weakest performers, with sub-indices down 1.68 percent and 1.65 percent, respectively.

Poly Real Estate, the country's second-largest developer, plunged 2.15 percent. CITIC Securities dropped 2.2 percent, while Everbright Securities dived 4.63 percent.

Despite general weakness, home appliance producers saw strong gains, with the sub-index up 1.38 percent. Eight companies soared by 10 percent, the highest rise or fall allowed in a single trading day. Endi