Global fund exodus from China stocks hits record sixth month

Foreign investors have been relentlessly selling China’s onshore equities into the new year as traders grow impatient over the lack of stronger policy support for the country’s economy and stock market.

Global funds offloaded 14.5 billion yuan ($2 billion) worth of shares on a net basis in January via trading links with Hong Kong, extending their selling to a record sixth month, according to Bloomberg-compiled data. That brings the total amount of stocks sold since August to 201 billion yuan.

A plethora of concerns including China’s property woes, the absence of forceful measures from authorities and jitters over any spillover from derivatives known as snowballs have dented accumulated inflows into A-shares since 2017, which have pared to about 1.6 trillion yuan. That has weighed on the onshore benchmark, which was down more than 6% in January, capping a record sixth month of losses.