Chinese shares reverse losses

Chinese shares surged on Friday, reversing from losses seen in the last three days.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index soared 3.09 percent to 2,737.6 points while the smaller Shenzhen index gained 3.7 percent to close at 9,418.2 points, Xinhua reported.

The ChiNext Index, which tracks China's NASDAQ-style board of growth enterprises, soared 4.6 percent to close at 1,994.07 points.

Total turnover on the two bourses edged up to 428.75 billion yuan ($65.44 billion), from 399.4 billion yuan the previous trading day.

Heavy-weight brokerages led the gains, with the largest CITIC Securities rising 5.84 percent and the smaller Huatai Securities surging by the daily limit of 10 percent.

Companies related to cyber security were among the biggest winners, as a number of shares including Nsfocus Information Technology and Beijing Vrv Software reached the daily upper limit.

Friday's gain came after a three-day losing steak that brought down the Shanghai Composite Index by almost 10 percent.

In January, the index fell 22.65 percent, the steepest monthly drop since October 2008.

To ease the liquidity strain before the lunar New Year holiday, the Chinese central bank injected 100 billion yuan into the financial system through open market operation on Friday.