For a record 12th day in a row, Chinese margin debt balances have dropped with today’s 8.5% collapse the largest in history. As of last night, there were around 570/1694 Shenzhen stocks halted/suspended and hundreds more on the Shanghai bourse leaving more than 54% of all Chinese stocks frozen. China continues to try tomanage leverage down (raising margin requirements on stock futures) while encouraging speculation (easing rules for insurers to buy blue chips and financing the purchase of smaller company shares directly) and CYNK’ing the entire market – if it’s not open, you can’t sell it and the price cannot fall! It’s not working as CSI-300 futures are now down 7.9% in the preopen.
China appears to be trying to manage leverage…
- *CHINA RAISES MARGIN REQUIREMENT FOR CSI 500 INDEX FUTURES
- *SHANGHAI MARGIN DEBT FALLS 8.5%, BIGGEST ONE-DAY DROP ON RECORD
The problem is the collateral value is falling faster than the margin debt leaving “leverage” still at record highs…
While encouraging speculation…
- *CHINA EASES RULES FOR INSURERS TO INVEST IN BLUE CHIPS: XINHUA
- *CHINA SECURITIES FINANCE TO BUY MORE SMALLER COS. SHRS: CSRC