China's stock indexes rose sharply from near-flat midday trading on Nov. 4, while the People's Bank of China (PBOC) lowered a rate under a program to support share purchases.
The CSI 300 closed at 4,101.34 points, up 2.31%. The Shanghai Composite gained 2.16% to 3,686.17 points, and the ChiNext index climbed 6.40% to 2,544.73.
The late advance followed a difficult month for Chinese shares. Reuters reported that the CSI 300 fell 8.5% in October amid concern about China's economy and a selloff in technology stocks.
The PBOC cut its relending rate by 0.25 percentage points to 1%, effective Nov. 4. That is the rate it charges banks under a program designed to support share buybacks by listed companies and stake purchases by major shareholders. Banks may add a margin when lending to those borrowers.
After a Nov. 2 policy meeting, banks submitted applications for more than 200 billion yuan in relending quotas, the PBOC said. The applications are requests for funding capacity, not a tally of completed share purchases.
In a separate measure, the PBOC held a 100 billion yuan swap facility operation on Nov. 3 that drew bids from 31 securities and fund firms. The winning fee was 10 basis points. The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) said the support tools were introduced in 2024 and that two earlier swap operations totaled 105 billion yuan by the end of October.
The CSRC said it would seek wider use of the facilities and revise share buyback rules. It gave no date for the rule changes.
