Chinese, Asian stocks rally after days of seesawing

Stocks across Asia rose broadly Thursday after days of plunges and intense volatility led by Chinese shares.

The Shanghai Composite was up 5.3%, the biggest single-day gain in a month. The Shenzhen Composite Index rose 3.58% and the Nasdaq-like ChiNext added 3.68%. Shanghai’s stock market, which experienced a massive run-up in recent months, is down almost 17% for the month – but still 40% up from where it was a year ago.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index rose 3.6%, Singapore’s Straits Times index gained 2.52% and Japan’s Nikkei ended up more than 1%. Australian and Indian markets finished in positive territory as well.

China’s central bank Thursday added more cash into the financial system to ease liquidity strains. The People’s Bank of China said it had conducted about $23.4 billion worth of reverse repurchase agreements with banks, short-term arrangements to buy securities from banks with the agreement to sell them back in the future.

But speculation remained that Chinese authorities were pulling other strings behind the scenes to prop up the market.

Caixin, a leading financial publication, wrote an editorial in which it said that while it was still too early for a thorough review of the costs and benefits of the government’s involvement in the stock market since early summer, it urged regulators to back off with interventions and “let the market return to normal again.”

“This will serve the real economy better,” it said. “The capital market cannot grow in a healthy manner with the [government] playing the role of savior. It should end this role sooner rather than later.”

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