Live | China Markets Live - Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hong Kong shares rally to finish strong

Welcome to the SCMP's live markets blog. The intense volatility of recent weeks has every chance of remaining the core underlying theme of activity. Investors are increasingly focused the broader question of how this episode might affect the wider economy as many suspect the equity bubble has yet to fully deflate. We'll bring you the key levels, trading statements, price action and other developments as they happen.

Here’s a summary of market action Wednesday, with analyst views: 

• Shanghai and Shenzhen rally anew, up in robust manner as confidence rises 
• Hong Kong settles 4.1 per cent or 872 points higher
• Japan's Nikkei stages blistering rally, up 7.71 per cent by the close, to lead Asian stocks' surge
• Market looks toward meeting next week by US Federal Reserve to see if they will decide on raising interest rates for first time in a decade

4:11pm: Hong Kong markets posted strong gains for the day with the Hang Seng Index closing up 4.1 per cent, 872.27 points, at 22,131.31. The H-share index rose 5.23 per cent, 496.05 points, to 9,975.53. Total market turnover was HK$ 116.1 billion.

3:49pm: Mainland China’s stock indexes – Shanghai Composite Index (orange) CSI300 index (purple), Shenzhen Composite Index (green), ChiNext Index (blue) – all of whom closed higher today. Click on chart to enlarge.

 

3:42pm: Rabobank on today’s market movers:

“Stocks (Eurostoxx) gained more than 1.1 per cent in Europe and no less than 2.5 per cent in the US (S&P500). The Nikkei soared 7.7 per cent for good measure. There wasn’t any particular driver of that move (in fact one could argue it was despite troubling trade figures from China released earlier), which in itself may be a sign that the market has adjusted itself to the new economic realities and lower growth outlook.

But those economic realities obviously remain far from reassuring. This point was driven home once again by comments from the World Bank, whose chief economist Kaushik Basu urged the Fed to delay a rate rise.

He said it will cause “panic and turmoil” because “[the] world economy is looking so troubled that if the US goes in for a very quick move [...] it is going to affect countries quite badly.”

The main economic news flow during the day came from the European mainland, with German trade figures suggesting that German exports actually held up well in July (+2.4 per cent) and the second estimate for Q2 Eurozone GDP growth coming in at 0.4 per cent from 0.3 per cent previously. Unfortunately, this was a typical case of data looking good from the outside, but not as good on closer inspection.