Investors Await China Bank Loans Data

Mayank Mehta
08 Feb, 2010
New York City

Stocks in Shanghai and Hong Kong edged lower. China is scheduled to release new bank loan data for January this week. The closely watched data is expected to show a new surge in bank lending ahead of 20% loan curb lending for the year. SAIC Motor sales in January surged 90%.

[R]9:00 PM Hong Kong, China – Stocks in Shanghai and Hong Kong edged lower. China is scheduled to release new bank loan data for January this week. The closely watched data is expected to show a new surge in bank lending ahead of 20% loan curb lending for the year. SAIC Motor sales in January surged 90%.[/R]

Ahead of economic reports on inflation and new loans stocks edged lower in Hong Kong and Shanghai.

Hang Seng index in Hong Kong decreased 114.19 or 0.58% to 19,550.89, and CSI 300 index in China lower 2.10 or 0.07% to 3,150.99.

China is scheduled to report new loans in January this week. New bank loans are expected to surge to a new high ahead of the clampdown that requires banks to cut lending by 21%.

In January loans may have surged before the loan curbs are in place. In the last quarter of 2009, banks in China offered more than 1 trillion yuan loans and for the year issued nearly 10 trillion yuan loans.

China Huaneng Group Corp plans to spin off its wind power subsidiary in a listing that may be valued as much as $950 million. China Longyuan Power Group Corp raised HK$20.1 billion in December.

For five years in a row China doubled its wind power generation capacity to 25.1 gigawatts and is expected to increase it to 150 gigawatts according to a research note from Goldman Sachs and reported on Bloomberg.

COSCO Shipping Co. reported its 2009 annual net income declined 90.6% to 135.5 million yuan on the sales decline of 43% to 3.9 billion yuan.

Shanghai Movers

China Merchants Bank Co., Ltd decreased 2.2% to 15.13 yuan.

Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd rose 0.04% to 48.09 yuan.

SAIC Motor Corporation Limited fell 0.1% to 20.13 yuan after the carmaker said sales totaled 307,384 units in January, up 89.8% from a year earlier.

HK Movers

China Resources Land Limited decreased 0.9% to HK$14.48 and the state-controlled developer will be added to the Hang Seng Index following a quarterly review.

Standard Chartered PLC the international banking group dropped 2.5% to HK$171.50.