BEIJING: China’s shares climbed, with a gauge of smaller companies capping its biggest advance in more than six years, as hundreds of stocks resumed trading and export data exceeded economists’ estimates.
The Shanghai Composite Index rose 2.4 percent to 3,970.39 at the close. The small-cap CSI 500 Index rallied 6.2 percent for its best gain since November 2008. The number of halted companies fell by 408 from Friday to 1,045, or 36 percent of overall listings on mainland exchanges. PetroChina Co. dropped 4.3 percent to lead losses by the nation’s largest firms after the energy producer jumped 24 percent in the past two weeks.
“Bargain hunters are focusing on small caps that were hit the most during the market rout,” Dai Ming, a fund manager at Hengsheng Asset Management Co., said in Shanghai. “The market doesn’t have too much interest in big companies. They were the outperformers in the market plunge.”
The Shanghai gauge has rebounded 13 percent in three days after unprecedented government intervention to end a rout that wiped almost $4 trillion of value. Officials last week banned major shareholders from selling shares for six months, ordered state companies to buy equities and allowed more than half of listed firms to suspend trading. The public security bureau is investigating the plunge and has found signs of stock market manipulation, the official Xinhua News Agency reported over the weekend.
