1st LD-Writethru: Chinese shares on 4-day winning streak

Chinese shares have sat on gains for four-consecutive days by closing marginally higher on Friday, sustained by the financial heavyweights.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index nudged up 0.5 percent to close at 2,874.15 points while the smaller Shenzhen index dropped 2.31 percent to 9,536.71 points.

The ChiNext Index, the NASDAQ-style board of growth enterprises, tumbled 4.98 percent to 1,907.04 points.

The ChiNext dropped below the 2,000-point mark at opening on Friday, and plunged over 4 percent before the midday break. The losses accelerated after the break and touched down to lower levels near closing.

Total turnover on the two bourses decreased to 640.65 billion yuan (98.13 billion U.S. dollars), compared with Thursday's 663.52 billion yuan.

Losers outnumbered gainers by 778 to 208 in Shanghai and 1377 to 161 in Shenzhen.

Losses were swept across small-cap stocks and start-ups, with nearly 60 stocks on the two bourses dropping by the daily limit of 10 percent, while only 19 saw gains by the daily limit.

Only the sub-indices related to financial heavyweights, ship-building and wine closed positive on Friday.

Financial heavyweights, especially banks, gained remarkably and fueled a remarkable ricochet in the Shanghai index during the afternoon session.

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the nation's largest bank, climbed 4.36 percent and finished the day at 4.31 yuan.

Shares opened lower and wobbled during the whole morning session, before under-performing small-cap stocks dragged the broader indices to dive over 1 percent shortly after the midday break.

A rebound followed immediately, and the solid gains by the financial heavyweights sustained the Shanghai index to stay firmly in positive terrain during the rest of afternoon session. Endi