(Bloomberg) — China’s long-awaited stimulus measures may have been too much for markets.
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With shares soaring and turnover reaching 710 billion yuan ($101 billion) in the first hour of trading on Friday, the Shanghai stock exchange was marred by order processing glitches and delays, according to reports from brokers seen by Bloomberg News . The Shanghai Stock Exchange is investigating the reasons for delays, a statement said.
The Shanghai Composite Index was roughly unchanged for about an hour from 10:10 a.m., while the Shenzhen composite gained 4.4% for the period. When trading resumed, the Shanghai index rose.
Some are still experiencing delays in getting orders through during the afternoon session, multiple traders told Bloomberg News. Onshore sales were fairly moderate after 1 p.m. local time.
“I only remember a trading slowdown like this during the 2015 rally, but overall it sends a positive signal,” said Du Kejun, fund manager at Shandong Camel Asset Management Co. “Although it was only a minor disruption to our trading, it would have been a major annoyance for firms keen to increase their positions today.”
Chinese stock markets have pared losses for the year after a series of stimulus measures introduced this week. That has led to heavy trading, with volume sales approaching 1 trillion yuan in the morning session. That’s more than the full-day total in recent months.
Investors are rushing in for fear of missing out as China’s boldest policy campaigns in decades sparked a roughly 15% rally in the onshore benchmark this week.
This makes this five-day period up to and including Friday the busiest period before a national holiday ever.
The Politburo, made up of the ruling Communist Party’s 24 top officials including President Xi Jinping, pledged to strengthen fiscal and monetary policies and vowed to “strive” to achieve the annual target, according to a statement on Thursday. They also pledged to take action to ensure the real estate sector “stops going backwards,” their strongest vow yet to stabilize the crucial sector.
“The trading system is simply overwhelmed. There is a huge rush of stock bulls.” Hao Hong, chief economist at Grow Investment Group, said in a post on
–With help from Emma Dong, Mengchen Lu and Shuqin Ding.
(Updates with comments from traders in fourth paragraph)
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