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1st LD-Writethru: Chinese stocks plunge on weak lending data

Xinhua, January 15, 2016 Adjust font size:

Chinese shares plunged on Friday, as the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index fell below 2,900 points at one point during the afternoon session.

The Shanghai index dived 3.55 percent to close at 2,900.97 points. The smaller Shenzhen index lost 3.35 percent to close at 9,997.92 points.

The ChiNext Index, the NASDAQ-style board of growth enterprises, lost 2.86 percent to close at 2,112.9 points.

Total turnover on the two bourses stood at 538.3 billion yuan (82.01 billion U.S. dollars).

Losers outnumbered gainers by 922 to 69 in Shanghai and by 1,384 to 176 in Shenzhen.

The sub-indexes related to steel, oil and transportation were the most battered. PetroChina Company Limited, China's largest oil and gas producer and supplier, sank by 3.8 percent and closed at 7.34 yuan.

Angang Steel Company Limited, one of China's first large iron and steel companies, declined by 8.1 percent to close at 4.88 yuan.

Friday's stock market depression followed lower-than-expected bank lending data.

In December, banks' new lending reached 597.8 billion yuan, down 345.3 billion yuan from December 2014 and lower than the expected 700 billion yuan, said the central bank.

The market has been jittery since Wednesday, when the Shanghai index sank below 3,000 points, considered a big psychological low-water mark.

That index has dropped 18.03 percent since the start of 2016. Endi