Chinese domestic equities are worth more than US$10 trillion for the first time since 2015, when a record crash erased half the market’s value in months and saddled millions of investors with losses.
The U.S. has the world’s most valuable stock market at US$38.3 trillion.
China's stock market has added US$3.3 trillion since a low in March, helped by Beijing’s policies to encourage trading, a flurry of new listings that arrived with eased rules, and the strengthening yuan. Stocks have been close to the US$10 trillion milestone since July, when China’s government acted to tame a speculative rally that had suddenly pushed a gauge of large caps near a 12-year high.
The country’s total market capitalization is now US$10.04 trillion and just shy of the all-time high, according to data compiled by Bloomberg as of Monday.
The CSI 300 Index of key stocks listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen slipped by 0.2 percent as of 10:17 a.m. on Tuesday, paring its gain in 2020 to 17 percent. That rally tops the world’s major benchmarks.
China has added a new stock venue since 2015, with the Nasdaq-style Star market launching in Shanghai in July last year. Regulators waived rules on valuations and debut-day price limits for shares on the board. In August this year, a batch of 18 firms traded for the first time on the ChiNext Index under so-called registration-based initial public offerings, surging by an average 212 percent by the close.
The sci-tech innovation board of the Shanghai Stock Exchange is launched at the Lujiazui Forum in Shanghai, on June 13, 2019. The Star board celebrated its first anniversary on July 22.
