Beijing - Shares on China's main stock market fell by 2.44 per cent Thursday after an overnight plunge on Wall Street. The key Shanghai Composite Index, which tracks shares traded in foreign and local currencies, closed at 1,717.72, down 42.89 points, or 2.44 per cent.
The smaller Shenzhen Composite Index lost 1.67 per cent, or 7.85 points, to end the day on 463.01.
Both markets had risen by just more than 3 per cent Wednesday.
A total of 684 listed stocks lost value on the Shanghai index while 169 rose and 22 were unchanged.
A sell-off of shares in coal producers began the slump in the morning amid speculation that coal prices for power and steel production would continue to fall as economic growth slows, the Shanghai Daily newspaper reported.
Financial and real-estate shares also dragged down the index on Thursday, the newspaper said.
"The government's gesture of boosting consumption by expanding infrastructure construction fails to exert a long-term influence on the market," it quoted an analysis from the Haitong Securities firm as saying.
