The Chinese stock market closed lower on Friday, mainly due to the impact of a global sell-off of tech stocks, according to China Global Television Network (CGTN) market analyst Timothy Pope.
The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index was down 2.26 percent to 4,027.26 points, while the Shenzhen Component Index closed 3.44 percent lower at 15,782.22 points.
The combined turnover of stocks on these two indices reached 3.55 trillion yuan (about 521 billion U.S. dollars), down from 3.59 trillion yuan in Thursday trading.
Shares in the education and pork sectors led gains, while those in technology, cobalt metal and the battery industry posted sharp declines.
The ChiNext Index, tracking China's Nasdaq-style board of growth enterprises, lost 4.07 percent to close at 4,194.21 points.
The STAR Composite Index, which reflects the performance of stocks on China's sci-tech innovation board, closed 2.02 percent lower at 2,343.66 points.
Pope said Chinese markets, particularly the tech sector, were negatively impacted by Apple's announcement that it was raising the prices of its core products.
"A global tech sell-off really rocked the A-share market today. The Shanghai Composite was down about 2.3 percent, the Shenzhen Component lost 3.4 percent and the ChiNext board 4 percent. This was sparked in part by an announcement by Apple overnight that it is raising the prices on iPads and MacBooks because of surging memory and storage chip costs. This is actually a fascinating story, what’s happening in that sector at the moment, because it takes in some of the sky-high profit margins these companies have had in the past, and how that's being squeezed by AI - specifically their data center memory requirements. But that news sent big tech stocks sharply lower overnight in the US and Chinese tech companies followed suit today," he said.
Chinese stocks slip due to shake-up in US tech sector: CGTN analyst
