China Stocks fall on profit booking

Headline indices of the Mainland China equity market declined on Thursday, 26 July 2018, as profit taking resumed after strong rally early this week on Beijing's stimulus plan and on caution ahead to interim corporate earnings results due out in coming weeks. The investors largely shrugged off an overnight Wall Street rally after the US and European Union agreed measures to avert a transatlantic trade war. Sectors were mixed for the day, with most of them little changed. Around late afternoon, the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index declined 0.5%, or 14.79 points, to 2,888.86, meanwhile the Shenzhen Composite Index, which tracks stocks on China's second exchange, fell 0.65% or 10.50 points, to 1,614.22. The blue-chip CSI300 index dropped 0.9%, or 31.38 points, to 3,546.37.

FROM THE PRESS: Beef importsChina is expected to import 1.2 million tons of beef this year, 23 percent more than in 2017, as demand for animal protein remains strong in Asia, an executive at Brazilian meatpacker Minerva SA said Tuesday at an industry event. Fernando Galletti de Queiroz, chief executive of South America's largest beef exporter, said the growth of meat consumption in Asia is estimated at 57 percent this year.

CNPC investment - China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) said yesterday it will spend more than 150 billion yuan by 2020 to boost oil and gas output in the western region of Xinjiang, to offset falling output from aging fields in northeastern China. The increased spending will push output in the Xinjiang region to more than 50 million tons of oil equivalent between 2018 and 2020, CNPC said. The spending is equivalent to the annual expenditure by CNPC's listed unit Petrochina, China's top oil and gas producer, for oil and gas exploration and production in 2017.

Sinopec expects first-half profit to rise by 50% -- China Petroleum and Chemical Corp. expects first-half net profit to rise by 50 percent from 27.1 billion yuan (US$3.98 billion) in the same period a year ago.

CURRENCY NEWS: Chinese yuan rose against greenback on Thursday, after stronger mid-point fixing by central bank inline with greenback strengthening in the global market. The U.S. dollar weakened against a basket of major currencies after the United States and the European Union agreed to de-escalate a transatlantic trade conflict, leaders from the two trading partners announced in a joint statement in Washington. The People's Bank of China (PBOC) set official yuan midpoint at 6.7662, stronger by 378 pips, or 0.56 percent, than the previous fix of 6.8040 on Wednesday. At press time, USD/CNY is trading at 6.7313, having clocked a one-week low of 6.7360.

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