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BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) -China’s biggest brokerage CITIC Securities on Friday reported a 51.5% year-on-year rise in third-quarter profit, driven by strong investment gains.
In a stock exchange filing, CITIC said net profit for the three months to September 30 reached 9.44 billion yuan ($1.33 billion).
China’s stock markets rallied in the third quarter, with the Shanghai Composite Index up 12% during the period, encouraged by bullish sentiment on technology development and a growing demand for diversification beyond U.S. assets.
Investors ramped up leverage bets to join a liquidity-fuelled stock market rally despite deflation in the Chinese economy and a persistent property debt crisis.
Revenue from investment gain grew 190.05% to 32.838 billion yuan over January to September compared with the same period a year earlier, the filing showed.
In the same period, fees and commission revenue rose 52.9% to 10.939 billion yuan in the brokerage business and 30.9% to 3.689 billion yuan in investment banking.
CITIC’s Hong Kong-listed shares closed up 3.7% at HK$31.66 prior to the earnings announcement, compared with a 0.7% rise in the benchmark index.
($1 = 7.1230 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Ziyi Tang and Engen Tham; Editing by Louise Heavens and Jan Harvey)
