China stocks volatile after global selloff

However, he argued, “while traders remain uneasy about China, the broader outlook for emerging markets is more optimistic (or at least less pessimistic)”. Chinese markets usually close at 3 p.m. local time.

But Shanghai ended 2.3 percent higher. The Australian dollar, often used as a liquid proxy for China plays, fell to a two-month low of $0.7048, having shed more than two USA cents in the first full trading week of 2016. It last traded at 6.5920 compared with 6.5555 Wednesday. The People’s Bank of China reduced the yuan’s fixing, which limits onshore moves to 2 percent on either side, by 0.51 percent to 6.5646, the weakest since March 2011. It was last at 6.6943 compared with 6.6927 Wednesday.

And in China, hopes were that past devaluations of the Chinese yuan and repeated efforts at easing monetary policy had done the trick and stopped its economic growth from slowing any more.

“The central bank’s tolerance for a weaker yuan is much higher now as it wants to make the currency more market-driven”, said Xia Le, a Hong Kong-based economist at Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA.

Chinese authorities have been trying for months to restore confidence in the country’s stocks after a plunge in prices in June rattled global markets and prompted a panicked, multibillion-dollar government intervention.

“That’s just the world we live in now”, said Joseph Quinlan, chief market strategist at U.S. Trust, Bank of America’s private wealth arm.

US crude CLc1 struggled just above a seven-year trough of $33.77 per barrel plumbed overnight. In a reverse repo, the central bank purchases securities from banks with an agreement to resell them in the future.

Crude oil prices fell on concerns about the pace of growth in China, the world’s second-largest oil consumer.

Investors who wanted to do so would have to disclose their plans 15 days in advance.

Many analysts attributed the decline to the imminent end of a six-month lockup on share sales by big institutional investors.

There was little reaction to North Korea’s announcement that it had tested a hydrogen bomb – its fourth nuclear test since 2006.

The MSCI Asia-Pacific Index of shares sank to a three-month low and the Bloomberg-JPMorgan Asia Dollar Index dropped to its weakest level since April 2009. The Chinese yuan fell 0.39 per cent to 6.58 against the greenback.

Adding to the risk-off mood, crude oil prices hit new 11-year lows as the face-off between Saudi Arabia and Iran over Riyadh’s execution of a Shi’ite cleric was seen extinguishing any chance of major producers co-operating to cut production. USA futures for February delivery GCcv1 rose 0.35 percent to $1,078.4.