| Mainland shares rise for fifth straight session |
SHANGHAI, Mar. 12 -- Chinese mainland's stocks rose today for the fifth straight session, with heavyweights Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Bank of China gaining on institutional demand.
But other large caps retreated after recent gains, capping the market's climb, The Associated Press reported.
The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.6 percent at 2,954.91. The Shenzhen Composite Index rose 1.2 percent to 769.93.
ICBC gained 1.2 percent to 5.11 yuan and BOC rose 0.8 percent to 5.08 yuan. The banks are mainland China's biggest stocks by market capitalization.
"Some institutions (securities funds) seemed to have supported ICBC and BOC today to prevent the benchmark index from falls," said Ding Chaoyu, an analyst at Great Wall Securities. "Once the index drops, redemption calls will rise. They'd definitely try to avoid that."
But other large caps fell: China Merchants Bank slipped 1.4 percent to 16.07 yuan, having gained 7.4 percent over the past four sessions. Property developer China Vanke fell 2.8 percent to 15.17 yuan after rising 8.4 percent last week, and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank dropped 3.3 percent to 24 yuan after jumping 14.6 percent from Tuesday through Friday.
Zhou Lin, an analyst at Huatai Securities, said these blue chips could rebound anytime soon as institutions would need them to hedge index futures coming later this year.
News showing that China's February trade surplus surged to US$23.76 billion from January's US$15.88 billion had little impact, analysts said.
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