China Central Bank Launches Measures to Halt Stock Market Crash

The People's Bank of China convened a meeting on November 2, 2026, with the National Financial Regulatory Administration, the China Securities Regulatory Commission, and several major banks to deploy tools to stabilize the domestic stock market. The intervention follows a record 12-week slide in equities, with the CSI 300 index falling 8.5% in October—its worst monthly performance in over a decade—and entering a bear market.

Proposed measures include improving relending facilities to support corporate stock buybacks and providing up to 100 billion yuan in bank loans to two state-owned enterprises for buybacks. To increase liquidity, the central bank announced it will conduct daily overnight reverse repo operations at a rate of 1.25%, which analysts characterize as a de facto rate cut. These actions follow previous attempts by the national team to stabilize the market through ETF buying, with turnover reaching 84 billion yuan.

The crisis coincides with broader economic weakness, as October purchasing managers' indexes showed both manufacturing and non-manufacturing activity returned to contraction, with manufacturing at 49.3. While the measures triggered a modest pop in sentiment, some analysts remain skeptical about whether these policy shifts can resolve structural geopolitical risks and uncertainty regarding artificial intelligence earnings.