World Shares Rise: China Market Gains on Government Support

Bangkok, Feb 6 (AP) World shares were mostly higher Tuesday, led by gains in China after a state investment fund said it would step up stock purchases and a report said leader Xi Jinping was set to meet with officials to discuss the markets.

Germany's DAX edged 0.1% lower to 16,880.36 and the CAC 40 in Paris was up 0.1% at 7,598.26. Britain's FTSE 100 added 0.4% to 7,639.96.

The future for the S&P 500 was flat while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 0.2%.

Bloomberg reported that Xi was to be briefed by officials about the markets, underscoring the ruling Communist Party's concern over a slump that has wiped out trillions of dollars in market value over the past several years. Citing unnamed officials, the report said the timing of the briefing was uncertain. It could not be confirmed.

But Chinese markets jumped after it was published, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng surging 4% to 16,133.60 in a rally led by technology shares such as e-commerce giant Alibaba, which gained 7.6% and JD.com, which was up 7.8%. Online food delivery company Meituan jumped 6.5%.

The Shanghai Composite index climbed 3.2% to 2,789.49. In China's smaller main market, the Shenzhen Component index soared 6.2%, while the CSI 1000, an exchange-traded fund that often is used to track so-called “snowball derivatives,” investment products that can pay big gains but also can result in exaggerated losses, advanced 7%.

The latest salvo in the government's campaign to prop up sagging markets came with a promise by Central Huijin Investment, whose subsidiaries include many Chinese state-run banks, to expand its purchases of stock index funds.

The fund periodically steps up buying of shares in big state-owned banks and other companies to counter heavy selling pressure in the Chinese markets. On Monday, benchmarks in Shanghai and the smaller market in Shenzhen bounced between small gains and big losses, while share prices of state-run banks and other big companies rose.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index fell 0.5% to 36,160.66 and the Kospi in South Korea lost 0.6%, to 2,576.20.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 shed 0.6% to 7,581.60

In Bangkok, the SET gained 0.9%, while India's Sensex rose 0.6%.

On Monday, stocks slipped on Wall Street as data showed the economy remains strong, which could delay interest rate cuts investors are counting on.

The S&P 500 fell 0.3% from an all-time high set Friday. The Dow industrials dropped 0.7% and the Nasdaq composite edged down by 0.2%.

In other trading Tuesday, US benchmark crude oil lost 1 cent to $72.77 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, the international standard, was up 5 cents at $78.04 per barrel.

The dollar rose to 148.71 Japanese yen from 148.68 yen. The euro slipped to $1.0730 from $1.0743.