SHANGHAI; China stocks dropped the most in three weeks on Tuesday, led by financial and technology shares, as Asian markets tanked after overnight losses on Wall Street and amid rising growth concerns.
The blue-chip CSI300 index fell 2.3 per cent to 3,218.41, while the Shanghai Composite Index lost 2.1 per cent to 2,645.85. Shenzhen's start-up board ChiNext tumbled 2.8 per cent.
"Earnings momentum has cooled this year along with the economy and we expect the trend to extend into 2019," Gao Ting, head of China strategy at UBS Securities, wrote in the 2019 China equity market outlook.
Although an upcoming meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump later this month at the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina triggers hope for a trade deal between the two countries, many investors remain sceptical.
Wu Kan, head of equity trading at Shanshan Finance, said he wouldn't build heavy stock positions as the outcome of the Xi-Trump meeting is far from certain.
Financial and technology sectors were among the biggest casualties in China, dropping 2.4 per cent, and 3.4 per cent, respectively.
Meanwhile, Chinese investors dumped stocks in acquisitive sectors such as entertainment, media and computer for the second day in a row, on concerns new regulatory demands and a slowing economy could force heavy write-downs for firms that overpaid for assets during the boom years.
Bucking the trend, People's Insurance Group of China Co Ltd , which debuted in Shanghai on Friday, jumped the maximum 10 per cent.
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