China’s top financial officials moved to shore up confidence in the country’s tumbling stock market, marshaling a rare show of coordinated verbal support as the government tries to prevent a $3 trillion equity rout from infecting the world’s second-largest economy.
The reassuring words from leaders of China’s central bank, securities watchdog, and banking and insurance regulator -- including promises of financial support for local businesses -- followed a bout of investor panic this week that sent the Shanghai Composite Index to a four-year low. The comments came just hours before Chinese data showed a deeper-than-estimated economic slowdown, and a day after Donald Trump took new steps to escalate his trade war with Beijing.
