Following last night's afternoon session plungefest (with ChiNext's biggest drop in a month), as it appeared the government experimented with ‘free' markets briefly, regulators have “asked” insurance companies to be “net sellers” of stocks going forward. With margin debt dropping for the 4th day in a row (to fresh 4-month lows), Markit noted that accusations of foreigners short selling shares is “overblown” by Chinese market regulators and not the cause of a recent rout in the stock market, according to the SCMP. The requests and threats appear to not be working as CSI-300 futures open down 0.7%.
As a reminder, this is how things ended last night…
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And tonight we are seeing losses extend…
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More measures…
China Insurance Regulatory Commission asked insurers to try their best to avoid net sales of equities in near future, Shanghai Securities News reports, citing an unidentified person from an insurer.
And refutations to China's claims that foreign sellers were “waging economic war”
Accusations of foreigners short selling shares is “overblown” by Chinese market regulators and not the cause of a recent rout in the stock market, South China Morning Post cites financial data co. Markit analyst Relte Stephen Schutte as saying.
- Official data shows minimal short selling of individual shares with shorting of domestic ETFs at only 1.2% of total domestic ETFs under management, Schutte is cited as saying
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On a more sombre note, the first major casualty of the Chinese stock market disaster has happened as Caixin reports well-known fund manager, Liu Qiang, a 36-year-old fund manager at Ruilin Jiachi, jumped to his death from a high-rise in downtown Beijing, angry the government intervened in the stock market rout, people who knew him say…
