China markets blast rocket boosters, pull U-turn with Beijing’s big policy, stimulus plans

Traders see the China market as ripe for the picking, but long-term effects of Beijing’s new stimulus package remain in question

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An electronic screen in Shanghai shows a huge surge in China’s Shenzhen Composite Index on Thursday. Photo: Getty Images

Published: 11:00pm, 27 Sep 2024Updated: 9:05am, 2 Oct 2024

“Do It,” proclaimed the title of an article posted by Chinese investment bank Citic Securities as it called for investment – including stock trading – in response to Beijing’s dauntless display of determination this week to revive the economy.

“The signal is clear, and one phrase says it all – do it,” the broker said in the Thursday article after China’s top leadership issued a rallying call at an unexpected Politburo meeting focusing on the economy earlier that day, following the release of a major stimulus package two days earlier.

Citic’s excitement is widely shared in the market, marking a sudden shift in public sentiment after Beijing’s policy U-turn in reviving the economy – leadership’s sharpest manoeuvre since an abrupt rollback of China’s zero-Covid policy in late 2022 after nearly three years of mass testing and lockdowns.

The reversal of sentiment seems to have spread to foreign investors, too. Asked what he was buying after China’s moves this week, billionaire investor David Tepper said more of “everything” related to China, in a CNBC interview on Thursday.

“Everything. [Exchange-traded funds], futures, everything. Listen, [it was] a long time ago in 2010 [when] I [last] said ‘everything’,” he said.

China’s stock market has responded with a surge after the Politburo’s rare meeting on economic affairs in the month of September – as such meetings normally take place in April, July and October – and after financial regulators’ earlier announcement to utilise tools that the market had long anticipated.