Chinese share prices down 2.33% on sell-off of heavyweights

Chinese shares closed lower on Monday amid heavy selling of big blue-chips. Market observers said weakened corporate earnings accounted for the sell-off, with worries about more lower-than-expected profit reports adding to the selling pressure.

None of the top 10 heavyweights managed to rise.

Sinopec and China Life both reported a year-on-year decline of 60% in their respective net profits for the first quarter of this year.

As a result, Sinopec, China's largest oil refiner, fell 4.38% to 11.34 yuan (1.62 U.S. dollars) on Monday, and China Life, the nation's largest life insurer, went down 4.12% to32.8 yuan.

PetroChina, the country's largest oil producer was expected to release quarterly corporate report on Monday evening, and plummeted 4.26% to 16.84 yuan, while China Ping An, another leading insurer set to unveil first-quarter results Tuesday evening, dropped 3.46% to 64.7 yuan.

Given the mounting rice prices, the agricultural sector performed in a robust manner with an average gain of three percent. Eight stocks from the sector, including Longping High-tech, Denghai Seed, Fengle Seed and Dunhuang Seed, rose by the 10-percent daily limit each.

On Monday, the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index ended daily trading at 3,474.72 points, 83.03 points, or 2.33%, lower than last Friday.

The Shenzhen Component Index for the smaller stock exchange lost 322.45 points, or 2.46%, to close at 12,782.50 points.

Combined turnover on the two bourses shrank to 161.2 billion yuan (23.03 billion U.S. dollars), drastically lower than the 260.5 billion yuan for the previous trading day.

Losses outnumbered gains by 518 to 298 in Shanghai and by 426 to 227 in Shenzhen.