China Shares End Higher as Tech Shares Surge

China's tech-heavy start-up board ChiNext jumped nearly 3 percent on Wednesday to a 4-month high, lifting the broader market, which was initially dragged by cyclical sectors.

The CSI300 index of the largest listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen rose 0.7 percent, to 3,781.61, while the Shanghai Composite Index gained 0.9 percent, to 3,647.93 points.

Investors, encouraged by a series of government policies to promote innovation and entrepreneurship, plowed money into tech stocks, while paying little heed to geopolitical tensions after Turkey downed a Russian fighter jet.

"Despite rising volatility recently, the general trend of the market is still upward," said Yang Hai, strategist at Kaiyuan Securities.

"The government will likely maintain loose monetary policies to ensure smooth economic restructuring."

Investor enthusiasm for small caps spread to blue chips as well, lifting sectors such as banks and infrastructure out of negative territory by late afternoon.

In a sign of growing confidence that China's stock markets are stabilizing, the securities regulator has lifted an order that required brokerages to buy more shares each day than they sell for proprietary trading.

But shares of CITIC Securities sagged, after China's securities association said the brokerage had inaccurately inflated its derivative business by 1.06 trillion yuan ($165.92 billion) in a report it submitted in September.

(Reporting by Samuel Shen and Pete Sweeney; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)