By Li Zengxin (www.chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2007-08-10 12:08

Chinese stocks suddenly plunged 100-point deep near the noon break, after a lower opening and some short-ranged fluctuations this morning.

Failing to continue yesterday's record-making growth, the Shanghai Composite Index opened from 4745.18, and edged up to the highest 4,769.62 around half hour to the close. But then suddenly, it turned down on a deep dive of 100 points to the lowest 4,652.06 and then climbed up a little to close at 4,677.49, down 76.61 points or 1.61 percent from yesterday's closing.

The Shenzhen Index opened lower from 16,606.83, and closed at 16,175.65, down 504.73 points or 3.03 percent. It went through the morning within a range from 16,046.71 and 16,606.83, both lower than yesterday's closing.

Of the A shares listed on the two exchanges, as many as 1,156 went down, merely 169 closed up and 142 ended flat. Large traders China Unicom, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Vanke, were all down to press the indices lower.

As the stock indices has recently kept reaching new highs, the total market value also surpassed previous records. The total value of all securities on the two exchanges has grown 6.6 times in the past two years since July 28, 2005. By yesterday's closing, the total market value was 21.14 trillion yuan, larger than the gross domestic product last year of 21.09 trillion yuan.

The total market value of all securities in the Shanghai bourse reached 16.36 trillion yuan, including 4.68 trillion yuan of floating shares; the market value of the Shenzhen exchange was 4.78 trillion yuan, including 2.4 trillion yuan in floating shares.

It is worth of noting that new stocks issued in the past year contributed nearly 10 trillion yuan in the total 21.14 trillion yuan market value, according to WIND Info, a leading consultant firm.

Since June 19 last year when the securities regulator started approving initial public offerings (IPOs) from a year-long suspension, 126 companies went public on the domestic market and their total market capitalization was 9.6 trillion yuan by yesterday.

Of the new shares, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China had market value of 2.18 trillion yuan on the top, followed by Bank of China with 1.48 trillion yuan and China Life with 1.38 trillion yuan.