China’s $6.3 Trillion Stock Selloff Is Getting Uglier by the Day
3:59
Chinese stocks just capped another dismal week, with a gauge of mainland firms listed in Hong Kong languishing at the bottom of global equity index rankings for the year so far.
Grim milestones have kept piling up in recent days: Tokyo has overtaken Shanghai as Asia’s biggest equity market, while India’s valuation premium over China has hit a record. Locally, a meltdown in Chinese shares is wreaking havoc on the nation’s asset management industry, pushing mutual fund closures to a five-year high.
The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index has already lost 11% in 2024. Coming after a record four-year losing streak, the slump is reinforcing a structural shift that’s seeing everyone from active money managers to passive funds turn their back on the world’s second-largest stock market.
In all, some $6.3 trillion has been wiped out from the market value of Chinese and Hong Kong stocks since a peak reached in 2021, underscoring the challenge that Beijing faces as it seeks to arrest a decline in investor confidence. Authorities have ruled out the use of massive stimulus to revive the flagging economy, leaving traders wondering when things will improve.
“What we are seeing this year so far really is a continuation of what we saw last year,” John Lin, AllianceBernstein’s chief investment officer of China equities, said in an Jan. 17 interview on Bloomberg TV. “These squeezing-the-toothpaste type of stimulus policies so far haven’t been able to turn around the underlying bottom-up fundamentals of areas like the property sector.”
‘Waiting Game’
The HSCEI gauge plunged more than 6% this week and is on track to record its worst January performance in eight years. On the mainland, the CSI 300 Index has dropped in nine of the last 10 weeks. Signs that state funds likely bought exchange-traded funds and a decision by China’s largest brokerage to suspend short selling for some clients failed to halt the onshore benchmark’s losing run.
The headwinds buffeting the market are well documented: China’s real estate sector remains a trouble spot, deflationary pressures are building and a long-running feud between Beijing and Washington refuses to go away, with the US election set to take place later this year. In recent days, uncertainties about the trajectory of US interest rates and the threat of an imminent blowout of local stock derivatives have added to investor worries.
Asian fund managers have cut their allocation to China by 12 percentage points to a net 20% underweight, the lowest in more than a year, according to the latest Bank of America survey.
Managers of benchmark-tracking funds have sold a net $300 million of shares traded in mainland China and Hong Kong this month, according to a Morgan Stanley analysis. That’s a reversal from the last half of 2023, when they bought $700 million on a net basis even as stock indexes declined.
“China is a waiting game and we continue to be waiting,” said Mark Matthews, head of Asia research at Bank Julius Baer & Co., which is mostly avoiding Chinese equities.
Foreigners Continue to Exit China Equities
Overseas investors have extended their record quarterly selling streak in 2024
Source: Bloomberg
Note: Data shows quarterly net outflows in billion yuan
Beijing’s efforts to reassure investors have been met with skepticism from investors, many of whom worry that authorities are behind the curve. While the People’s Bank of China took steps last month to pump cash into the financial system, it bucked widespread expectations for cutting a key policy rate on Monday.
Speaking to leaders at the World Economic Forum this week, Chinese Premier Li Qiang trumpeted his nation’s ability to hit its roughly 5% growth target for 2023 without flooding the economy with “massive stimulus.”
Right now, the loss of confidence is so severe that even attractive valuations are of little help. The MSCI China Index has never been this cheap versus the S&P 500 gauge from a forward earnings estimate perspective. Still, bets on a short-term rebound have failed to materialize.
“The government seems very sanguine about the economy,” said Xin-Yao Ng, an investment director for Asian equities at abrdn. “The market might not even trust the 5% growth figure, it certainly has a much more negative view on the economy and definitely believes Beijing needs a big fiscal response.”
— With assistance from Sangmi Cha, April Ma, and Hideyuki Sano
1:54
Citigroup Inc. told private bankers serving Chinese clients not to discuss the yuan or hedging the currency risk when making trips to the mainland, according to people familiar with the matter, underscoring growing sensitivity in onshore dealings.
The US lender, which doesn’t have a private bank unit in mainland China, primarily serves its rich clients from offshore wealth hubs in Hong Kong or Singapore. Relationship managers who travel to China typically can’t discuss investments or solicit business though they can meet with clients to build relationships.
The bank has a set of rules related to offshore banking, and in its latest refreshed guidelines in December specifically warned relationship managers against soliciting yuan-related investment ideas, the people said, asking not to be identified talking about an internal matter. It updates its offshore banking rules from time to time, the people said.
A spokeswoman for the bank declined to comment.
Read more:The guidance comes as China’s growth has disappointed and the nation has been battling a prolonged property slump. A rout in stocks has made China one of the world’s worst-performing major market in the new year, and the yuan has dropped about 6% in the past 12 months. At the same time, Chinese investors have been piling into ETFs in Japan.
Last month, Moody’s Investors Service cut its outlook for Chinese sovereign bonds to negative, underscoring deepening global concerns about the level of debt in the world’s second-largest economy.
There has been heightened caution among global banks as they try to navigate geopolitical tension between China and the US. Being negative or the perception of being negative in China can attract backlash onshore.
Last year, a bearish research report on Chinese banks by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. drew criticism from a major lender and state media. The year before, JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s description of Chinese internet companies as being “uninvestable,” resulted in the bank losing a role as an underwriter in a stock offering for a Chinese tech company.
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