Shanghai's hard-currency B shares dropped for the fourth consecutive day yesterday, posting its biggest one-day loss in 10 months, amid rising fears about the tiny market's fate.
The Shanghai B-share Index lost 12.27 points, or 5.64 per cent, to 205.225. It was the biggest daily decline since the indicator tumbled 6.87 per cent on September 22 last year.
The Shenzhen B-share Index slid 19.89 points, or 3.41 per cent, to 563.39 yesterday.
'Investors seemed to have totally lost confidence in the B-share market,' West China Securities trader Wei Wei said. 'Many of them just wanted to exit regardless of heavy losses.'
Beijing created the hard-currency B-share market, in which only foreign investors can trade, in 1992 to give state-owned firms a channel to raise foreign currency. In Shanghai, the shares are denominated in US dollars; their Shenzhen counterparts are traded in Hong Kong dollars.
To date, about 100 B-share companies are traded at the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges.