China stocks end higher as banks rally

SHANGHAI: China stocks ended higher on Tuesday, underpinned by strong gains in banks as investors cheered Beijing's latest move to ease pressure on the country's financial institutions.

The blue-chip CSI300 index rose 0.1pc, to 4,775.80, while the Shanghai Composite Index also inched up 0.1pc to 3,371.69.

Banks led the gains, with the CSI300 banks index up 2.6pc and bellwether Bank Of Chengdu surging 10pc.

The valuations of Chinese banks are now at historically low levels with sufficient safety margin and allocation value, analysts at Northeast Securities said in a report.

China will extend the grace period for implementation of sweeping asset management rules to the end of 2021, the central bank said on Friday.

The one-year extension will help ease the impact of the pandemic on financial institutions' asset management businesses and help avoid the pressure on them caused by the centralised disposal of stock assets, the central bank said.

Tuesday's gain followed a strong rally on Monday, underpinned by upbeat domestic factory data.

Although market participants remained wary of uncertainties around Sino-US relations.

The editor of a newspaper published by China's ruling Communist Party's People's Daily said on Tuesday that Beijing would retaliate if all Chinese journalists based in the United States are forced to leave the country.

China will not accept the "theft" of a Chinese technology company and is able to respond to Washington's move to push ByteDance to sell short-video app TikTok's US operations to Microsoft, the China Daily newspaper said on Tuesday.