Cyclical and consumer shares drag China stocks down

SHANGHAI: China stocks fell on Friday, dragged by cyclical and consumer shares, while investors were watching moves from the country’s central bank that could affect market sentiment. Hong Kong shares also fell.

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• China’s central bank has hundreds of billions of yuan worth of bonds at its disposal to borrow, and will sell them depending on market conditions, the bank told Reuters on Friday, part of a plan markets see as an effort to cool a powerful bond rally.

• China’s state-backed Global Times has urged the EU to “show sincerity” in technical talks before imposing tariffs on Chinese-manufactured electric vehicles (EVs), after the bloc said provisional tariffs would take effect from Friday.

• The CSI energy index and the consumer discretionary index dropped 1.74% and 1.2%, respectively.

• At the midday break, the Shanghai Composite index was down 0.93% at 2,929.98 points.

• China’s blue-chip CSI300 index was down 0.96%, with its financial sector sub-index lower by 1.4%, the consumer staples sector down 1.4%, the real estate index down 0.43% and the healthcare sub-index up 0.66%.

• Chinese H-shares listed in Hong Kong fell 1.27% to 6,388.95, while the Hang Seng Index was down 1.09% at 17,832.38.

• The smaller Shenzhen index was down 0.3%, the start-up board ChiNext Composite index was weaker by 0.24% and Shanghai’s tech-focused STAR50 index was down 0.4%.

• Around the region, MSCI’s Asia ex-Japan stock index was weaker by 0.12% while Japan’s Nikkei index was down 0.29%.

• The yuan was quoted at 7.2684 per US dollar, 0.02% firmer than the previous close of 7.2697.

• In Hong Kong, the sub-index of the Hang Seng index tracking energy shares dipped 1.6% while the IT sector fell 1.1%.