Mainland shares post 8th straight loss on Fri

Jun. 16, 2008 (China Knowledge) - Mainland stocks fell for the 8th consecutive day on Friday to a new 15-month closing low with the Shanghai key index fell below the 2,900 mark, dragged by market heavy weights and property developers.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index, which covers both A shares and B shares on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, lost 3% or 88.73 to 2868.80 points after fluctuating between 2976.45 and 2865.50 points.

Similarly, the Shenzhen Component Index on the smaller Shenzhen Stock Exchange dipped 3.90% or 403.42 points to 9936.73 points, after touching an intraday low of 9921.33 points.

The combined turnover on the two bourses booked a noticeable decrease to RMB 67.7billion from RMB 84.7 billion of the previous trading day.

The National Bureau of Statistics announced on Thursday that the CPI in May rose 7.7% from a year earlier, down slightly from last month. The news dampened market sentiment amid mounting concerns over inflationary pressure and tightening monetary policies.

Heavy weights remained weak with all the top 20 heavyweights posted losses. Haitong Securities<600837> dived by the daily limit of 10% to RMB 24.12. CITIC Securities<600030> dipped 7.77%% to RMB 27.52. China COSCO <601919><1919> slumped 7.46% to RMB 19.35. Aluminum Corp of China (Chalco)<601600><2600><ACH> plunged 7.12% to RMB 14.48.

Property developers fell across the board on reports that most of them are facing capital shortages. Chongqing Yukaifa Co<000514> dived by the daily cap of 10% to RMB 7.41. China Merchants Property Development Co<000024><200024> lost 5.96% to RMB 16.88. China Vanke<000002><200002> dropped 4.9% to RMB 16.5.

As a whole, losers outweighed winners by 780 to 65 in Shanghai and 629 to 63 in Shenzhen.

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