One day after Xi Jinping secured a third term as President, China’s yawn slid sharply as the country’s stocks underwent their worst day since the 2008 financial crisis.
On the onshore market the Renminbi struck a new 14-year low against the dollar as the Hang Seng Tech Index plunged 10%. Both Tencent and Alibaba fell over 11%, evaporating $54 billion in stock market value.
The selloff occurred after the Communist Party revealed its new leadership team, which will hold office for five years. The top team was missing several key leaders who had favored opening up the economy and various market reforms. That spooked investors who were hoping for the US and China to maintain a closer trade relationship.
Ken Cheung, the chief Asian forex strategist at Mizuho Bank said in an interview, “It appears that the leadership reshuffle spooked foreign investors to offload their Chinese investment, sparking heavy selloffs in Hong Kong-listed Chinese equities.”
Some analysts softened the atmosphere by pointing out Beijing has been less harsh from a regulatory perspective over the last few months toward the nation’s largest tech firms. Duncan Wrigley, the chief China economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, noted, “Some of the policy toward tech stocks has been softened. Overall, I think the stance of the leadership and the governments has become on balance more positive over the last year,”
The slide in the market occurred despite National Bureau of Statistics releasing much stronger than expected GDP numbers. Overall the Chinese economy grew by 3.9% year over year, beating analyst expectations of 3.4%.
The Daily Financial Trends
