In a move to further obscure information about overseas funds flowing into and out of its struggling stock market, China has announced that it will cease publishing daily flows data starting August 18. This decision, hinted at in April and confirmed by the country’s stock exchanges on Friday, follows the May halt of intraday flows data through Hong Kong trading links.
Investors will no longer be able to calculate net flows at the end of each trading day, and the only daily data available will be total turnover, number of trades, and turnover of the 10 most active securities via the Hong Kong links. Combined data on northbound flows into individual stocks will only be released quarterly, while data on global investors’ holdings in individual stocks will be published on the fifth trading day of each quarter.
This reduced transparency is seen as an attempt to bolster confidence among local investors, which has been shaken by an outflow of global funds. Overseas money managers have offloaded approximately 30 billion yuan ($4.1 billion) of mainland shares in July, marking the largest monthly outflow since October.
While quarterly reports from the central bank will still provide some insight into fund flows, this data is subject to a lag of at least a month and has experienced unexplained delays. Real-time trading data for southbound flows from mainland China to Hong Kong will remain available after the August deadline.
