The value of shares investors in China’s onshore stock markets have borrowed to sell short reached 151.9 billion yuan ($23.4 billion) on Wednesday, data from the China Securities Finance Corporation (CSF) showed.
The value of shares used for shortselling was at a record high of 152 billion yuan on Tuesday, according to data from CSF, a financial institution cofounded by the Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange.
The amount is minuscule compared with the market’s capitalisation of about 80 trillion yuan for all stocks listed on Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges.
But the latest figure is more than seven times the level of about 21 billion yuan seen a year ago, when shortselling also hovered near record levels at that time. ($1 = 6.4860 Chinese yuan) (Reporting by Luoyan Liu and Andrew Galbraith; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)