Chinese shares plunged on Monday, with stocks related to consumer products and travel leading the rout, as health authorities reported a continuing surge of domestic coronavirus cases in the midst of an increasingly cloudy economic outlook.
The rapid spread of the virus is heightening investors’ worries over slowing growth, highlighted on Monday by figures showing new bank lending fell more than expected in February while broad credit growth slowed.
Chinese banks extended 1.23 trillion yuan ($195 billion) in new yuan loans in February, down sharply from a record 3.98 trillion yuan in January and falling short of analysts’ expectations, according to data released by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) on Friday.
A pull-back in February’s lending had been widely expected as Chinese banks tend to front-load loans at the beginning of the year to get higher-quality customers and win market share.
Analysts polled by Reuters had predicted new yuan loans would fall to 1.49 trillion yuan in February. But the final tally was lower than 1.36 trillion yuan in February 2021, when the economy was rebounding from a pandemic-induced slump.
“I think the [Covid] outbreaks impose downside risk to China‘s economy at least in the next few months,” Zhiwei Zhang, chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management, said on Monday.
Tourism Index Sinks, Heavy Stock Connect Selling
The CSI Tourism index plunged 6.3% on Monday, as investors fretted over the impact of strict control measures. It led a 3.1% fall in the blue-chip CSI300 index, and a 2.6% drop in the Shanghai Composite, that index’s biggest daily drop since July 24, 2020.
The smaller Shenzhen Composite Index fell 2.9% and the start-up board ChiNext Composite index .CNT was 3.6% weaker.
Falls were exacerbated by heavy selling by foreign investors through China‘s Stock Connect programme. Refinitiv data showed outflows totalling 11.04 billion yuan ($1.74 billion) on the day.
China has reported more local symptomatic Covid-19 cases so far this year than it recorded in all of 2021, as the highly transmissible Omicron variant triggers outbreaks from Shanghai to Shenzhen.
The surge, which has seen China report its highest daily infections figures in two years, potentially complicates Beijing’s “dynamic-clearance” ambition to halt the spread as quickly as possible.
China‘s southern technology hub of Shenzhen suspended public transport including buses and subways from Monday, and the financial hub of Shanghai locked down some housing and office compounds.
Adding to investors’ concerns over the regulatory environment, China‘s cyberspace regulator issued a new set of draft measures on Monday aimed at protecting minors, demanding online gaming, livestreaming, audio and video platforms to set up a “youth mode” for minors.
The CSI Anime Comic Game Index .CSI930901 fell 2.4%, and info tech shares .CSIINT dropped 3.2%.
• Reuters with additional editing by Jim Pollard
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