Chinese shares close lower Wednesday

Source: Xinhua | 2020-04-16

Chinese stocks closed lower on Wednesday, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index down 0.57 percent, at 2,811.17 points.

The Shenzhen Component Index closed 0.56 percent lower at 10,417.37 points.

The combined turnover of stocks covered by the two indices stood at 641.1 billion yuan (about 90.77 billion U.S. dollars), expanding from 589.3 billion yuan the previous trading day.

Losers outnumbered gainers by 1,122 to 424 on the Shanghai bourse and 1,558 to 605 in Shenzhen.

The ChiNext Index, China's NASDAQ-style board of growth enterprises, lost 0.4 percent to close at 1,977.51 points Wednesday.

Wednesday's retreat came as investors took a wait-and-see attitude ahead of the release of China's key economic data with uncertainties stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, market analysts said.

On the monetary policy front, China's central bank on Wednesday further lowered the interest rate of its medium-term lending facility (MLF) loans by 20 basis points amid a slew of policy maneuvers to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on the economy.

China is set to release its first-quarter economic data, including the closely-watched GDP figure, on Friday.