A stock market investor shows off her earnings on Monday in the city of Mianyang, Southwest China’s Sichuan Province. Chinese mainland indexes surged more than 5 percent Monday on news of trade talks progress. Photo: VCG

 

China's A-share market added 1.89 million new trading accounts in March despite the coronavirus-fueled stock market volatility, the biggest addition this year, according to the latest stock registry data.

The March reading, accounting for signups to trade shares on the Chinese mainland market, fell 6.6 percent from the year before, but soared 111.2 percent on a monthly basis, per statistics released Friday by China Securities Depository and Clearing Corporation Limited.

This compared with an addition of 895,400 in February and 800,700 in January. By the end of March, A-share securities accounts reached 163.34 million. The last time the monthly addition topped 1 million was July 2019.

Trading volume in the mainland bourses also saw a spike in March, totaling nearly 50 trillion yuan ($7.07 trillion), up 61.8 percent from February. 

Investor fervor brewing in the economy that was racing to be back in motion over the past month was met with coronavirus market swings. 

And, the fast spread of the coronavirus in Europe and the US has resulted in piling crash reserve across the globe exemplified by frequent trading halts. The Saudi Arabia-Russia oil price that led to a plunge in global oil prices also deepened stock market woes. 

The Chinese mainland market fared much better than other markets in March, although the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index shed 4.5 percent. In the first quarter, the tech-heavy ChiNext index eked out a 4.1 percent gain, while the Shanghai Composite Index lost 9.83 percent, and the Shenzhen Composite Index declined 4.49 percent.

In comparison, the three major US indices all suffered hefty losses, with the Dow plunging 23.2 percent, NASDAQ down 14.18 percent, and S&P 500 down 20 percent. 

The mainland equity that has shown its resilience amid the virus-caused rout is set to boost its appeal to overseas investors as the nation started to open up its financial markets wider. China officially scraped foreign shareholding limits for asset management and securities firms effective April 1.

The Chinese market is a non-negligible investment goldmine, which if missed, would suggest the possible loss of growth opportunities for the next three to five decades, China Securities Journal reported on Saturday, citing Wang Dazhi, general manager of Shanghai-based China International Fund Management (CIFM).

Global Times