(Yicai Global) Nov. 11 -- China's mainland stock markets closed lower today after two domestic cases of Covid-19 were found to be connected and inflation slowed.

The Shanghai Composite Index came off 0.4 percent to 3,360.15, while the Shenzhen Component Index fell 1.05 percent to 13,993.33. The ChiNext Price Index, which tracks growth stocks in Shenzhen, slipped 1.29 percent to 2,773.22.

Markets had opened mixed this morning as investors took profits following gains yesterday, but the new cases of coronavirus infection and official figures released today for consumer and producer prices last month weighed on shares. 

Shanghai has tested more than 8,700 people who could have been infected with the coronavirus after the city yesterday reported its first domestic Covid-19 case in almost six months. None tested positive for the virus, Shanghai’s health commission said today. But a close contact of the patient has tested positive, authorities in the city of Fuyang in Anhui province said today. The two cities are more than 600 kilometers apart.

Meanwhile, China’s consumer price index rose just 0.5 percent in October from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said. That was the slowest gain since October 2009 and the first time the figure had gone below 1 percent since April 2017.

The producer price index, which tracks the cost of goods at the factory gate, fell for the ninth month in a row, dropping 2.1 percent last month, the same as in September, NBS data also showed.

Editor: Emmi Laine