 "China's intervention deter foreign investments")
China's latest efforts to rescue its stock market are driving away some of the world's biggest investors.
Policy makers revived intervention in the $6.5 trillion market this week, as state-controlled funds bought equities on Tuesday and the securities regulator signaled a selling ban on major investors will remain beyond its January 8 expiration date, according to people familiar with the matter. The measures to combat a seven per cent selloff at the start of 2016 follow unprecedented intervention to prop up shares during a $5 trillion rout over the summer.
While the maneuvers may stabilise the market temporarily, they're unnecessary because intervention creates price distortions and fosters moral hazard as traders come to view the government as a backstop for shares, according to UBS Wealth Management, Henderson Global Investors and Wells Fargo Funds Management. With the median stock on Chinese exchanges trading at the highest valuation among major markets, all seven strategists and fund managers surveyed by Bloomberg last month said they expected regulators to let the six-month selling restriction lapse.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission asked bourses verbally to tell listed companies that the ban will stay in effect until the introduction of a new rule restricting sales, said people familiar with the policy considerations, who asked not to be identified because the information wasn't publicly disclosed.
Listed companies were encouraged by regulators to issue statements saying they're willing to halt such sales, they said.
Introduced in July during the height of a $5 trillion rout, the ban on selling has applied to investors with holdings exceeding 5 percent in a single stock, along with corporate executives and directors. The restriction has locked up about 1.1 trillion yuan ($169 billion) of holdings, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Lifting of the ban will have a limited impact on the market because not all of the major shareholders need to reduce their stakes, Deng Ge, the regulator's spokesman, said in a statement Tuesday. In recent years, about 60 percent of the share sales from large holders have been done via block trades or transfer agreements that have less impact on the market, he said. The regulator will soon announce an improved mechanism for investors to reduce big holdings, Deng added.
The Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.7 percent at 1:01 pm local time, while the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index slid 1.1 percent in Hong Kong.
Until this week, the government had been removing market-support measures imposed during last year's equity rout, including resuming initial public offerings in December. Policy makers have said freer markets are integral to their plans to make the country's growth more sustainable. They've also worked to lure foreign investors to help professionalise a market where individual investors drive more than 80 percent of trading.
Those efforts have been thwarted in part by state meddling. International investors have sold about 51 billion yuan ($7.8 billion) of Shanghai shares through the city's exchange link with Hong Kong since China first stepped up its intervention in early July, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Investors withdrew HK$463 million ($60 million) from the two largest exchange-traded funds that track mainland stocks in Hong Kong in December, after taking out HK$5.4 billion during the previous month, data compiled by Bloombergshow.
High Valuations
"The Chinese government took a real hit to their credibility when implementing bans like that because that's not really rolling out the welcome mat to foreign investors," said Brian Jacobsen, chief portfolio strategist at Wells Fargo Advantage Funds in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. "It's quite costly for them to continuously intervene in the markets because it does not do a lot to instill trust that the prices are actually reflecting fundamentals."
While the rescue measures put in place over the summer did help to calm the Chinese market -- volatility has fallen by more than half since the ban started and the Shanghai Composite Index has rebounded 12 percent from its August low -- they've also left valuations trading at some of the world's highest levels.
Even after the retreat on Monday, the median stock on mainland exchanges trades at about 65 times earnings -- more than three times higher than the median multiple of 18 for NYSE Composite Index companies. The Shanghai Composite, which has a heavy weighting in low-priced bank and energy shares, is valued at 17 times.
"International investors remain a bit skeptical of the A-share market," said Andrew Gillan, the Singapore-based head of Asian equities excluding Japan at Henderson Global Investors, which oversees about $124 billion. "It's not trading on fundamentals."
Global stocks decline, bonds rise
Stocks fell around the world, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping 200 points, while bonds gained with the dollar on haven demand as China's unexpected weakening of its currency once again raised fresh concern about the strength of the global economy.
US stocks headed for a three-month low and emerging- market equities fell to the cheapest since 2009. Developing-nation currencies sank to an all-time low, with Korea's won weakening after North Korea's claim of a nuclear test added to geopolitical risks already heightened by Middle East tensions. The yen strengthened and Treasuries rose for a fifth session.
"This is risk aversion right now," Benjamin Dunn, president of Alpha Theory Advisors, which works with hedge funds overseeing about $6 billion. "This is like a replay of the same things that moved the markets in August. We're perhaps getting confirmation that China is as bad as people think. We've lost the tailwinds from the Fed and investor enthusiasm and this adds to the mosaic of fear that's out there right now." The MSCI All-Country World Index fell 1.1 per cent at 12:04 p.m. in New York. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index dropped 1.1 per cent, headed for its lowest close since October. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 215 points.
The Stoxx Europe 600 Index slid 1.5 per cent. Commodity producers and carmakers -- companies with some of the largest sales exposure to China -- led declines. Tuesday's rebound from the worst-ever start to the year was short-lived and the Stoxx 600 is down 3.4 per cent this week. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index slid 1.1 per cent to the lowest since July 2009, with all all but one of the 10 industry groups retreating.
Policy makers revived intervention in the $6.5 trillion market this week, as state-controlled funds bought equities on Tuesday and the securities regulator signaled a selling ban on major investors will remain beyond its January 8 expiration date, according to people familiar with the matter. The measures to combat a seven per cent selloff at the start of 2016 follow unprecedented intervention to prop up shares during a $5 trillion rout over the summer.
While the maneuvers may stabilise the market temporarily, they're unnecessary because intervention creates price distortions and fosters moral hazard as traders come to view the government as a backstop for shares, according to UBS Wealth Management, Henderson Global Investors and Wells Fargo Funds Management. With the median stock on Chinese exchanges trading at the highest valuation among major markets, all seven strategists and fund managers surveyed by Bloomberg last month said they expected regulators to let the six-month selling restriction lapse.
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"I'm disappointed that they continued to use these sorts of quantitative controls," Jorge Mariscal, the emerging-markets chief investment officer at UBS Wealth Management, which oversees $1 trillion, said by phone from New York. "These sorts of measures are going to backfire." The government resumed intervention this week after a $590 billion rout sparked by weak manufacturing data and local investor concern that an end to the selling ban would weigh on the market.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission asked bourses verbally to tell listed companies that the ban will stay in effect until the introduction of a new rule restricting sales, said people familiar with the policy considerations, who asked not to be identified because the information wasn't publicly disclosed.
Listed companies were encouraged by regulators to issue statements saying they're willing to halt such sales, they said.
Introduced in July during the height of a $5 trillion rout, the ban on selling has applied to investors with holdings exceeding 5 percent in a single stock, along with corporate executives and directors. The restriction has locked up about 1.1 trillion yuan ($169 billion) of holdings, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Lifting of the ban will have a limited impact on the market because not all of the major shareholders need to reduce their stakes, Deng Ge, the regulator's spokesman, said in a statement Tuesday. In recent years, about 60 percent of the share sales from large holders have been done via block trades or transfer agreements that have less impact on the market, he said. The regulator will soon announce an improved mechanism for investors to reduce big holdings, Deng added.
The Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.7 percent at 1:01 pm local time, while the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index slid 1.1 percent in Hong Kong.
Until this week, the government had been removing market-support measures imposed during last year's equity rout, including resuming initial public offerings in December. Policy makers have said freer markets are integral to their plans to make the country's growth more sustainable. They've also worked to lure foreign investors to help professionalise a market where individual investors drive more than 80 percent of trading.
Those efforts have been thwarted in part by state meddling. International investors have sold about 51 billion yuan ($7.8 billion) of Shanghai shares through the city's exchange link with Hong Kong since China first stepped up its intervention in early July, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Investors withdrew HK$463 million ($60 million) from the two largest exchange-traded funds that track mainland stocks in Hong Kong in December, after taking out HK$5.4 billion during the previous month, data compiled by Bloombergshow.
High Valuations
"The Chinese government took a real hit to their credibility when implementing bans like that because that's not really rolling out the welcome mat to foreign investors," said Brian Jacobsen, chief portfolio strategist at Wells Fargo Advantage Funds in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. "It's quite costly for them to continuously intervene in the markets because it does not do a lot to instill trust that the prices are actually reflecting fundamentals."
While the rescue measures put in place over the summer did help to calm the Chinese market -- volatility has fallen by more than half since the ban started and the Shanghai Composite Index has rebounded 12 percent from its August low -- they've also left valuations trading at some of the world's highest levels.
Even after the retreat on Monday, the median stock on mainland exchanges trades at about 65 times earnings -- more than three times higher than the median multiple of 18 for NYSE Composite Index companies. The Shanghai Composite, which has a heavy weighting in low-priced bank and energy shares, is valued at 17 times.
"International investors remain a bit skeptical of the A-share market," said Andrew Gillan, the Singapore-based head of Asian equities excluding Japan at Henderson Global Investors, which oversees about $124 billion. "It's not trading on fundamentals."
Global stocks decline, bonds rise
Stocks fell around the world, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping 200 points, while bonds gained with the dollar on haven demand as China's unexpected weakening of its currency once again raised fresh concern about the strength of the global economy.
US stocks headed for a three-month low and emerging- market equities fell to the cheapest since 2009. Developing-nation currencies sank to an all-time low, with Korea's won weakening after North Korea's claim of a nuclear test added to geopolitical risks already heightened by Middle East tensions. The yen strengthened and Treasuries rose for a fifth session.
"This is risk aversion right now," Benjamin Dunn, president of Alpha Theory Advisors, which works with hedge funds overseeing about $6 billion. "This is like a replay of the same things that moved the markets in August. We're perhaps getting confirmation that China is as bad as people think. We've lost the tailwinds from the Fed and investor enthusiasm and this adds to the mosaic of fear that's out there right now." The MSCI All-Country World Index fell 1.1 per cent at 12:04 p.m. in New York. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index dropped 1.1 per cent, headed for its lowest close since October. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 215 points.
The Stoxx Europe 600 Index slid 1.5 per cent. Commodity producers and carmakers -- companies with some of the largest sales exposure to China -- led declines. Tuesday's rebound from the worst-ever start to the year was short-lived and the Stoxx 600 is down 3.4 per cent this week. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index slid 1.1 per cent to the lowest since July 2009, with all all but one of the 10 industry groups retreating.