China Shares Down For 4th Day as Liquidity Concerns Linger

China's main indexes capped the fourth day in the red as lingering concerns over liquidity were further heightened by curbs on property investment.

The blue-chip CSI300 index fell 0.9 percent, to 3,436.76 points, while the Shanghai Composite Index lost 1 percent to 3,210.24 points.

Smaller caps led the decline, with the tech-heavy start-up board sliding 1.8 percent to a five-week low.

Zhang Qi, an analyst at Haitong Securities, said liquidity worries kept investors sidelined.

China's central bank skipped open market operations for a fifth day and was set to drain 40 billion yuan on Thursday.

The property market was another area of concern for investors, as an increasing number of cities joined a broad move by authorities to slap curbs on home purchases.

The National Academy of Economic Strategy, a government think tank, urged authorities to guard against risks in the property and financial sectors by properly managing monetary and land supply "floodgates," adding to worries about more restrictions on property developers.

Moody's Investors Service warned that the financial risks facing China from a potential property downturn had grown as record lending had made banks more risk-prone while the government was less able to combat those risks.

An index tracking real estate developers fell 1.1 percent.

Zhang also noted that recent sharp losses in newly-listed stocks, usually overpriced because of speculation, also pressured the market.

The steep correction in newly-listed stocks, now in its third session, has seen dozens of them tumbling by the maximum allowed 10 percent.

Sectors were down across the board, led by material and infrastructure stocks.

($1 = 6.8909 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Luoyan Liu and John Ruwitch; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)