Mainland exchanges fall amid tighter CSRC supervision

Mainland exchanges declined for a fourth straight session on Friday, finishing with a second consecutive weekly decline.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index closed down by 1.59 percent or 51.94 points at 3,210.36 points on Friday. The index dropped by 4.18 percent from the previous Friday, January 23.

The Shenzhen Component Index fell by 0.87 percent or 98.34 points to 11,150.69 points, with a weekly decline of 2.50 percent.

The CSI 300 Index of the biggest companies traded on the bourses in Shanghai and Shenzhen dropped by 1.36 percent to 3,434.39 points, ending the week 3.84 percent lower than the previous Friday.

Total turnover on the two bourses on Friday was 507.94 billion yuan ($81.25 billion), down from Thursday's 528.94 billion yuan.

Financial stocks suffered the most last week, amid tightened market scrutiny by the country's stock regulator.

On Wednesday, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) started reviewing every instance of a share sale in which a company insider managed to sell at the top of a price spike, the China Securities Journal reported.

Then, on Thursday, the CSRC launched a fresh probe into brokerages that lend money to investors to buy stocks. The regulator will inspect the margin trading business of 46 companies, the Xinhua News Agency said. In addition, banks have been ordered to tighten lending supervision to avoid loans being funneled into stock markets.

On Friday, insurers fell more than 4 percent on average while brokerages fell by 1.76 percent on average.

China Life Insurance Co declined by 5.05 percent to 36.08 yuan and Shenwan Hongyuan Group plunged by 4.26 percent to 16.85 yuan.

ChiNext, China's NASDAQ-style board for high-tech and fast-growing start-ups, fell by 1.80 percent or 30.79 points to 1,680.58 points. ChiNext saw a weekly fall of 0.98 percent.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index edged down by 0.36 percent to 24,507.05 points, with total turnover of HK$85.13 billion ($10.98 billion).