Investor confidence is waning in Chinese markets as a slowing economy and weakening yuan currency drag China A-shares related exchange traded funds to their lowest in 13 months.
China A-shares ETFs that track mainland Chinese stocks traded in Shanghai and Shenzhen declined Tuesday, with the Deutsche X-trackers Harvest CSI 300 China A-Shares ETF (NYSEArca: ASHR) down 3.3% and trading near its lowest since November 2014. Additionally, the KraneShares Bosera MSCI China A ETF (NYSEArca: KBA) decreased 3.9% and Market Vectors ChinaAMC A-Share ETF (NYSEArca: PEK) dropped 3.9%.
Meanwhile, the Direxion Daily CSI 300 China A Share Bear 1x Shares (NYSEArca: CHAD), which takes the inverse exposure to Chinese A-shares, gained 2.9% Tuesday. CHAD has increased 20.8% over the past month.
The Shanghai Composite Index dropped 6.4% to 2,749.8 at the close Tuesday, falling toward its lowest level since November 2014, Bloomberg reports.
“It’s an issue about confidence and there’s no confidence in the market now,” Wu Kan, a fund manager at JK Life Insurance Co., told Bloomberg. “The depreciating yuan and slowing economic growth have been haunting the market for a while. We are less than two weeks from the spring festival and it seems that most investors are in no mood to trade any more.”
Even a 440 billion yuan, or $67 billion, stimulus package from the People’s Bank of China was not enough to stem the fallout in Chinese equities.
Outflows continued at a rapid clip in December, with investors pulling a record $1 trillion from the market in 2015, or over seven times higher than the whole of 2014.