China’s $8.8 trillion stock market has dropped to become the worse performer globally. The Shanghai Composite Index fell 7.4 percent to 4,192.87 at the close, bringing its drop from this year’s high to 19 percent.
This comes after Morgan Stanley joined the growing group of analysts not to buy shares listed on Chinese stock exchange. “This is probably not a dip to buy,” wrote Jonathan Garner, the head of Asia and emerging-market strategy at Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong. “In fact, we think the balance of probabilities is that the top for the cycle on Shanghai, Shenzhen and the ChiNext has now taken place.”
Technology and smaller companies led the fall, with China’s smaller exchange in Shenzhen sinking 20 percent from this year’s peak.
Morgan Stanley said their reasoning was based on increased equity supply, weak earnings growth, high valuations and the surge in margin debt, saying the Shanghai Composite may fall as much as 30 percent through mid-2016.
