Chinese stocks surge to 5-month high

Financial shares led Chinese stocks to a 5-month high in morning trading on Monday.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index jumped by 2.07 percent, or 44.07 points, to 2170.69 points in morning trading on Monday. The banking sector rallied 3.5 percent, whereas securities brokerages rose by over 5 percent.

Three brokerages, Hongyuan Securities, Northeast Securities and Changjiang Securities, increased by the daily maximum of 10 percent in morning trading. The Bank of Communications, a major State-owned lender, retreated to a 9.38 percent gain by 11:30 am after touching the daily limit earlier in the morning.

The stock rally comes after key macro-economic data released Sunday morning reconfirmed that China's economic growth is rebounding after a soft first half.

The National Bureau of Statistics said on Sunday morning that Chinese industrial firms' profit in June rose 17.9 percent to 588.08 billion yuan ($94.98 billion), up sharply from an 8.9 percent rise in May. The growth rate of the first half year was 11.4 percent year-on-year, up from the less than 10-percent increase recorded in the first five months.

The Shenzhen Component Index was up 2.59 percent at 11:30 am, when the CSI 300 index of large-cap stocks grew 2.45 percent.