New | Beijing's support measures fail to revive stock market turnover
Investors are taking a wait-and-see approach on concerns that Beijing's market intervention indicates the severity of the economic situation
Beijing's propping up of the stock markets has failed to revive trading turnover, which is down more than a third on the mainland and in Hong Kong, hurting stockbrokers' income and share prices.
The Shanghai Composite Index climbed above 4,000 points last week for the first time in three weeks, with many crediting rescue measures introduced by Beijing since July 4 for stabilising the mainland market.
But the average daily turnover in Hong Kong has dropped below HK$100 billion since July 16 and stood at about HK$80 billion last week, down 70 per cent from its April 9 peak of HK$293.91 billion at the start of a rally that took the Hong Kong and mainland markets to seven-year highs.
Last week's average turnover was also 36 per cent lower than the HK$125.34 billion average for the first half of the year.
Mainland markets have shared a similar fate, with turnover in Shanghai last week averaging about 650 billion yuan (HK$822.56 billion), 50 per cent down on its June 8 peak of 1.312 trillion yuan and down 32 per cent from the June average of 952.3 billion yuan.
Turnover in Shenzhen dropped to just 247 billion yuan on July 10 when up to 60 per cent of the companies listed there suspended trading of their shares.