China's Stocks Near 2016 Low Have Asia Markets on Knife Edge

(Bloomberg) -- China’s sinking stocks are on the verge of an unwelcome milestone.

The Shanghai Composite Index closed 0.2 percent lower on Tuesday to within 10 points of where it bottomed out in 2016, having briefly breached that level in the afternoon before paring the decline. If the measure drops further, it’ll be trading at the lowest since November 2014, before the nation’s stock boom and subsequent $5 trillion bust.

“It is testing a very important support level on a technical basis,” Matt Maley, equity strategist at Miller Tabak + Co., wrote in a note. “Any further decline in that stock market gives it an important ‘lower-low’ and would be quite negative.”

Chinese equities are among the world’s worst performers this year, pressured by the trade spat with the U.S., signs of a slowing economy, a weaker yuan and the government’s attempts to rein in debt. Across the border in Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index is on the brink of a bear market.

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