An individual investor watches stock prices at a stock exchange in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu Province on Monday. Photo: VCG

China's A shares took a dive on Thursday, led by slumps in shares related to food, medicine, semiconductors and liquor. It marks the third consecutive day that China's markets have fallen after a thrilling rally last week.

The Shanghai Composite index plummeted by 4.5 percent on Thursday to end at 3,210.1 points, while the Shenzhen Component Index went down 5.37 percent. The NASDAQ-style ChiNext closed 5.93 percent lower. 

About 400 shares inched down by 9 percent on Thursday, while only 200 shares ended higher. But the volume of transactions on the two bourses rose above 1.5 trillion yuan on Thursday, marking the ninth consecutive day that the number was above 1.5 trillion yuan.  

China's biggest chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC), saw its shares soar by 201.97 percent to 82.92 yuan a share, following its debut on Shanghai's Sci-Tech innovation board on Thursday. The firm's daily transaction volume reached 48 billion yuan on Thursday, the fourth largest in terms of daily transaction volume in A-share history.

Analysts described the drop in the Chinese stock market as a result of investors' compensation sentiment - to make up for the short-term dramatic gains last week. But they noted that the fundamentals that support the well being of China's capital market have not changed.

China published its second-quarter GDP on Thursday. The economy returned to expansion from a drop of 6.8% in the first three months to grow at 3.2 percent in the second quarter, beating market expectations. 

Global Times