China stocks fall but markets shrug off US-China tensions

CSI300 index falls 0.8%, Shanghai Composite loses 0.6%

China stocks fell on Wednesday as investors continued to worry about profit pressures on banks, but markets largely shrugged off increased US-China tensions surrounding naval patrols in the South China Sea.

The CSI300 index fell 0.8% to 3,563.58 points at the end of the morning session, while the Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.6% to 3,413.73 points.

China CSI300 stock index futures for November fell 1.3% to 3,436, 127.58 points below the current value of the underlying index.

Finance and insurance stocks again weighed on indexes as investors continued to digest weak bank earnings and deposit rate liberalisation, a potential negative for banking profit margins.

But analysts said the markets were markedly subdued this weak considering the central bank's benchmark interest rate cut last Friday, the sixth since November 2014, and a further reduction in banks' reserve ratio requirements.

"The last few days the market is actually pretty placid. Last Wednesday there was a pretty large move but since then things have been calmer and calmer," said Zhang Qi, an analyst at Haitong Securities in Shanghai.

"Financial stocks continue to weigh on the market but I don't think we'll see any of the sort of big moves we saw earlier this year in June and July. Currently the market is trading right below 3,600 and there seems to be a fair amount of resistance around that level."

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index dropped 0.6% to 23,008.31 points, while the Hong Kong China Enterprises Index lost 1.3% to 10,579.98.

The index measuring price differences between dual-listed companies in Shanghai and Hong Kong stood at 129.67.

A value above 100 indicates Shanghai shares are being priced at a premium to shares in the same company trading in Hong Kong, and vice versa.

The northbound quota for the Hong Kong-Shanghai Stock Connect, currently set at 13 billion yuan, saw net outflows of 0.98 billion yuan.

Total volume of A shares traded in Shanghai was 16.75 billion shares, while Shenzhen volume was 20.20 billion shares.

Total trading volume of companies included in the HSI index was 0.5 billion shares.