SHANGHAI: Chinese shares opened higher on Monday because of hopes for strong corporate earnings, despite further monetary tightening announced by the central bank on Friday.
The Shanghai Composite Index was up 0.80 per cent at 4,091.242 points, its highest level this month.
On Friday, it jumped 3.73 percent. After the market closed on Friday, the central bank ordered an increase of 0.27 percentage point in commercial banks' benchmark one-year lending and deposit rates.
The government also said it would cut the witholding tax on interest income to 5 per cent from 20 per cent, reducing the impact of rising inflation on real deposit rates and giving investors less of an incentive to pour money into the stock market.
But Chinese stock investors have been encouraged in recent days by preliminary signs that corporate earnings for the first half of this year were strong. Most companies will report earnings over the next several weeks.
A survey of Chinese fund managers by financial information company InvesToday, published by the official China Securities Journal on Monday, found 77 per cent of them thought the stock market was still in the middle of a bull run.
The Shanghai Composite Index was up 0.80 per cent at 4,091.242 points, its highest level this month.
On Friday, it jumped 3.73 percent. After the market closed on Friday, the central bank ordered an increase of 0.27 percentage point in commercial banks' benchmark one-year lending and deposit rates.
The government also said it would cut the witholding tax on interest income to 5 per cent from 20 per cent, reducing the impact of rising inflation on real deposit rates and giving investors less of an incentive to pour money into the stock market.
But Chinese stock investors have been encouraged in recent days by preliminary signs that corporate earnings for the first half of this year were strong. Most companies will report earnings over the next several weeks.
A survey of Chinese fund managers by financial information company InvesToday, published by the official China Securities Journal on Monday, found 77 per cent of them thought the stock market was still in the middle of a bull run.