China stocks shrug off Brexit impact

Reuters Updated - January 20, 2018 at 09:39 PM.

china

China stocks rebounded more than 1 per cent on Monday, led by small-caps, as investors shrugged off Britain's decision to leave the European Union.

The Chinese market had a small fall on Friday after Brexit, but on Monday, main indexes climbed steadily after a weak opening.

The blue-chip CSI300 index rose 1.4 per cent, to 3,120.54, while the Shanghai Composite Index gained 1.5 per cent, to 2,895.70 points.

“Brexit's direct impact to China is limited, as China's capital market is not fully open yet,” said Wu Kan, head of equity trading at Shanghai-based investment firm Shanshan Finance.

He added that the longer term impact on China needed further assessment.

But some analysts quickly quantified Brexit's impact on China's economy.

Nomura lowered its China GDP growth forecast for 2016 from 6.2 per cent to 6.0 per cent, predicting Brexit would hurt exports to Europe, and hit sentiment in some areas of economic activity.

Hong Hao, chief strategist of BOCOM International, said that a loss of direct financial holdings, further deterioration in current and capital accounts due to capital flight and weakened bilateral trade, are three possible channels of contagion from Brexit for China.

All main sectors rose, with Shenzhen's start-up board ChiNext up 3.1 per cent and consumer shares also rising more than 3 per cent.

Published on June 27, 2016 07:20