China Stocks Slump, Briefly Enter Bear Market on Loan Concern?

China’s stocks tumbled, briefly driving the benchmark index into a so-called bear market, on concern economic growth will falter as banks rein in lending.
The Shanghai Composite Index lost 4.3 percent to 2,785.58, as Citic Securities Co., the nation’s biggest brokerage, slumped 7.8 percent and China Vanke Co., the largest developer by market value, fell 5.6 percent.
The gauge has slumped 19.8 percent since Aug. 4, after more than doubling from November, as China rolled out a 4 trillion yuan ($585 billion) stimulus package. A plunge in new bank loans in July, disappointing earnings and concern the government will seek to damp property speculation has sapped confidence, driving losses close to the 20 percent threshold for a bear market.
“It’s irrational selling that has shattered market confidence,” said Larry Wan, Shanghai-based deputy chief investment officer at KBC-Goldstate Fund Management Co., which oversees about $583 million in assets. “Some mutual funds have been reducing their stock holdings as they are pessimistic about the economic outlook.”
China Everbright Securities Co., which had the smallest first-day gain of any new stock in Shanghai this year, slumped by the 10 percent daily limit today. About 10 stocks fell for each that rose on the benchmark index.
“It’s scary,” Xu Xuehong, a 64-year-old retired worker in Shanghai who had about 300,000 yuan invested in shares, said in an interview at a branch of Shenyin & Wanguo Securities Co. “The decline is too rapid; I am not going to make new investments.”
Share Sales
The market slump follows the lifting in June of a nine- month moratorium on initial shares sales that triggered about $1 billion worth of IPOs by eight companies including China Everbright, China State Construction Engineering Corp. and Sichuan Expressway Co.
The Shanghai index, the world’s best-performing major market from Jan. 1 to Aug. 4, remains 59 percent below its record level on Oct. 16, 2007. Of the so-called BRIC group of emerging economies that includes India and Brazil, only Russia is in a bear market.
Chinese stocks are “extremely frothy” and investors should have an “underweight” position in the country’s shares, said Devan Kaloo, who oversees $11.5 billion as head of global emerging markets at Aberdeen Asset Management Ltd.
“I’m worried about a correction in a market that has been driven by cheap money,” said Kaloo, whose Aberdeen Emerging Markets Fund has beaten 98 percent of peers this year.
Tighter Loans
A slump in China’s July lending to less than a quarter of June’s level and disappointing earnings from companies including Yunnan Copper Industry Co. have weighed on shares.
“The current correction is reflecting the tightening in lending,” said Andy Xie, a former Asian chief economist at Morgan Stanley, who correctly predicted in April 2007 that China’s equities would tumble. “We’ve seen the peak of this market cycle.”
An estimated 1.16 trillion yuan of loans were invested in stocks in the first five months of this year, China Business News reported on June 29, citing Wei Jianing, a deputy director at the Development and Research Center under the State Council, China’s Cabinet.
The market may fall a further 10 percent, Xie said Aug. 17. The Shanghai index is trading at 30.3 times reported earnings, against 17.5 times for shares on the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, and remains 53 percent higher than at the start of this year.
The economy expanded 7.9 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, rebounding from the weakest growth in almost a decade. Still, exports last month fell 23 percent from a year earlier, while urban fixed-asset investment and industrial output both expanded less than economist estimates.
Construction Bank
China Construction Bank Corp. President Zhang Jianguo said that the nation’s second-largest bank will cut new lending by about 70 percent in the second half to avert a surge in bad debt.
“We noticed that some loans didn’t go into the real economy,” Zhang, 54, said in an Aug. 6 interview. “I feel that some industries are expanding too rapidly. For example, housing prices are rising too fast.”
Real estate developers led today’s decline, with the China Se Shang’s Property Index falling 7.5 percent. China Vanke fell 5.6 percent to 11 yuan. Poly Real Estate Group Co., the second- biggest, dropped 5.6 percent to 23.76 yuan.
“The Chinese market is very trend-oriented because there are many individual investors,” said Philippe Zhang, chief investment officer at AXA SPDB Investment Managers in Shanghai, which oversees about $220 million. “It can rally very quickly and go down strongly as well.”
Metal Stocks
Maanshan Iron & Steel Co. fell 7.5 percent, the most in nine months, after posting a first-half net loss. Jiangxi Copper Co., China’s biggest producer of the metal, lost 8.4 percent as the metal slumped to its lowest in more than two weeks.
Everbright Securities tumbled by the maximum after yesterday advancing 30 percent on its debut. The first-day gain for the Shanghai-based brokerage trailed the average 109 percent of the seven other companies to list shares in China since the moratorium on IPOs ended.
“The rally is over,” Wu Ruiling, a 70-year-old retired teacher in Shanghai, said at the Shenyin & Wanguo branch. “All we heard is funds are exiting the market as the government tightens bank loans. If I sell, I will have big losses.”
The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index, which measures Hong Kong-listed shares of Chinese companies, dropped 1.6 percent today to 11,260.83.