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S&P Dow Jones Indices Announces Removal of 21 Chinese Companies from Its Global Stock and Bond Indexes-Trump’s Executive Order Takes Hold Dozens of Chinese Companies Dropped from Major U.S. and European Indices

 2020年12月10日

S&P Dow Jones Indices Inc. announced Thursday (Dec. 10) that it will take 21 Chinese companies out of its global stock and and bond indexes under an order from the Trump administration, preventing U.S. investors from buying shares of those companies.

The index provider said it will take the stocks of 10 Chinese companies, including Hikvision, SMIC and Sinosolar, out of its stock and bond indexes from Dec. 21, before the stock market opens. It also plans to take out bonds issued by 11 Chinese companies from its fixed-income index before the market opens on Jan. 1 next year.

This follows a similar move last week by British index provider FTSE Russell to remove eight Chinese companies from its product line.

The Trump administration issued an executive order on Nov. 12 prohibiting U.S. investment firms, pension funds and other financial institutions and individuals from owning or trading in any securities issued by companies that the U.S. Department of Defense determines have a Chinese Communist military affiliation. The executive order was issued so that the stocks and securities of the affected Chinese companies no longer qualify for the index.

The U.S. government initially proposed 31 companies for exclusion, but the DoD added four more to the list last Thursday (Dec. 3): Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMIC), CNOOC (CNOOC), China National Technology Corporation (CBTGC) and China Consulting (CIECC).

S&P Dow Jones Indices also said it will continue to track updates to the list of entities to further clarify the scope of the executive order, as well as other related matters.

U.S. officials have long argued that Chinese companies are controlled by the Chinese government and collect sensitive information for the Communist Party’s People’s Liberation Army. Beijing denies asking Chinese companies to engage in industrial espionage.

Kay Van-Petersen, an Asian macro strategy analyst at Saxo Group in Singapore, believes this is not over, and there will be a series of chain reactions down the road – how will Alibaba handle it?