SHANGHAI/SINGAPORE: Chinese stocks rose on Friday after the central bank urged swift adoption of financial policies to support capital markets and flagged more rate cuts, but a slew of mixed economic data kept up pressure on policymakers for more stimulus.
After a morning of choppy action, the blue-chip CSI300 Index was up 0.63%, while the Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.56%. Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng gained 0.8%.
Data on Friday showed China’s economy grew in the third quarter at its slowest pace since early 2023, but a tumbling property sector remains a big challenge even though consumption and industrial output figures for last month beat forecasts.
“I think the pace of growth is similar to what we saw in the second quarter. So, the market is taking this in stride,” said Woei Chen Ho, economist at UOB in Singapore.
“The focus is on what the government is going to do next, in terms of the size of the fiscal stimulus.”
China stocks are down roughly 15% from an Oct. 8 peak after a turbulent few weeks, as caution has outpaced the euphoria that fuelled a surge of more than a fifth in just a week in late September after Beijing’s raft of stimulus measures.
In a statement on Friday, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) urged financial institutions to boost credit support for the real economy, and maintain reasonable growth in the total amount of money and credit.
The central bank and financial regulators have met officials of key financial institutions, such as banks, brokerages and fund companies.
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“This is another signal that regulators are keenly aware of waning confidence,” UBS analysts said in a note.
“However, it’s likely that investors, especially offshore ones, will be relatively fixated on demanding figures and implementation timeline of a fiscal stimulus.”
In September the central bank announced its most aggressive monetary support steps since the COVID-19 pandemic, such as interest rate cuts, a liquidity injection of 1 trillion yuan ($140 billion) and action to help property and stock markets.
On Friday, it kicked off two funding schemes to initially pump 800 billion yuan ($112 billion) into the stock market through newly-created monetary policy tools.
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