1st LD-Writethru: Chinese shares close lower Friday
Xinhua,June 01, 2018 Adjust font size:
BEIJING, June 1 (Xinhua) -- Chinese stocks closed lower Friday, the first day after more than 200 A-share companies were added to MSCI indices.
The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index went down 0.66 percent at 3,075.14 points, and the Shenzhen Component Index lost 1.23 percent to finish 10,169.35 points.
Trading remained thin as combined turnover on the two bourses reached 375.54 billion yuan (about 58.61 billion U.S. dollars), down from 408.5 billion yuan the previous trading day.
As the first step of the inclusion, 226 Chinese A-shares were added to the MSCI China Index and related global and regional composite indexes at the close of May 31.
The list consists mostly of bluechip stocks, with the majority of companies in the financial, consumer and medical sectors.
Analysts said the inclusion came as an important signal of China's financial opening up, rather than an immediate boost to the market.
Biomedicines, food and distilled spirits sectors led the decline, while companies related to coal and farm machinery rose.
The ChiNext Index, China's NASDAQ-style board of growth enterprises, shed 1.96 percent to close at 1,709.55 points Friday. Enditem