【英语财经】“国家队”稳住中国股市 National team props up Shanghai index

State-directed investors, known collectively in Chinese as the national team, piled into Chinese equities yesterday to prop up the benchmark index after it suffered its second-worst day on record on Monday.

Large inflows of mostly state-directed capital limited the fall in the Shanghai Composite Index to 1.7 per cent after it dropped 8.5 per cent in Monday’s trade.

“The national team is much more prepared this time so, on Monday night, the securities regulator made a statement and we see a fundamental change from [a few weeks ago] when [the authorities] acted quite slowly,” said Li Daxiao, an analyst at Yingda Securities.

The team consists of large institutions with billions of renminbi, such as the China Securities Finance Corp, a fund set up to provide liquidity and margin trading to brokerages. It has been the state’s main market rescue vehicle.

Other players on the team include state-owned brokerages, large insurance companies and Central Huijin Investment, the holding company for the government’s majority stakes in most of the country’s largest financial institutions.

Shares in banks and securities brokers were the main beneficiaries of the targeted buying yesterday. Their rise helped boost the index, which opened down 4 per cent and at one point was down by an intraday low of more than 5 per cent.

“In the early morning, everything was falling, but by the afternoon the brokerages were suddenly all dragged up,” said an institutional sales executive at a large state-owned brokerage. “Unless there was a very powerful external influence, then they wouldn’t have behaved like that.”

Within China, the national team has many cheerleaders thanks in part to orders from authorities to the country’s state-controlled media to report only good news and boost investor sentiment.

Some high-profile voices have called for even greater efforts from the government to ensure the market heads in the direction Beijing wants.

“I suggest we should set up a long-term and strong national team in China’s stock market,” said Zhao Xijun, deputy dean of the School of Finance at Renmin University in Beijing.

“It’s hard to change the sentiment of 80m retail investors and, since Chinese investors are relatively trusting of the government, it should be up to the government to organise the establishment of the national team.”

International investors have reacted to the government interference in the market with sentiment ranging from disbelief to disgust.

“It’s such a manipulated and rigged system at the moment because the government is the only buyer of substance and everybody is rushing for the exit or the entrance at the same time,” said Fraser Howie, co-author of Red Capitalism.

The Shanghai Composite closed yesterday at 3,663 points, only slightly above the nadir it reached this month.

听命于国家的投资者（在中国被统称为“国家队”）昨日大举进场买入中国股票，支撑起基准股指上证综指(Shanghai Composite Index)，此前该股指在周一出现有记录以来第二糟糕的单日跌幅。

主要受国家指导的资本大量流入，将上证综指周二跌幅限制在1.7%，该指数在周一大跌8.5%。

“国家队这一次的准备程度充分得多，所以周一晚，证监会发表了一份声明，与（几周前当局）动作很慢相比，我们看到了根本变化，”英大证券(Yingda Securities)分析师李大霄表示。

国家队由资金雄厚的大机构组成，包括中国证券金融公司(China Securities Finance Corp)，该基金旨在向券商提供流动性和保证金交易。它是国家的主要救市工具。

国家队的其他队员包括国有券商、大型保险公司和中央汇金投资公司(Central Huijin Investment)——掌管政府在国内多数大型金融机构所持多数股权的控股公司。

银行和券商板块股票是昨日定向买盘的主要受益者。它们的上涨帮助提振了上证综指；开盘时上证综指下跌4%，盘中最低点跌幅超过5%。

“早盘时，什么都跌，但午后券商股突然都被拉了起来，”某家大型国有券商的一名机构销售高管表示。“除非有非常强大的外部影响，否则它们的表现不会是那样的。”

在中国，“国家队”有很多拉拉队，这在一定程度上是因为当局勒令国家控制的媒体只报道好消息，振奋投资者情绪。

一些知名人士高调呼吁政府加大努力，确保市场走向符合北京方面的愿望。

“我建议，我们应该在中国股市建立一支长期和强大的国家队，”中国人民大学财政金融学院副院长赵锡军表示。

“8000万散户投资者的情绪是很难改变的，但由于中国投资者比较信任政府，因此应该由政府组建国家队。”

对于中国政府干预市场的举措，国际投资者的情绪反应包括不可思议和反感。

“眼下这是一个受到如此操纵和舞弊的体系，因为政府是唯一有实力的买家，大家都同时退场和进场，”《红色资本主义》(Red Capitalism)一书的合著者侯伟(Fraser Howie)表示。

上证综指昨日在3663点收盘，仅略高于本月早些时候触及的谷底。

译者/和风