(Yicai Global) June 19 -- China’s cross-boundary stock connect programs roared into overdrive this morning, as London’s FTSE Russell hiked its weighting of mainland equities to 25 percent from 17.5 percent last night, driving the Shenzhen bourse’s ChiNext market to a four-year high.

This was the fourth and final batch of the leading stock index compiler’s first stage of inclusion of mainland equities in its Global Equity Index Series that began a year ago. The new weighting will be reflected in the indexes when markets open on June 22.

Mainland China’s three major stock market indexes all rose today. The Nasdaq-style ChiNext Index [SHE:399006] hit its highest point since April 2016 at 2,319.45, erasing a previous record set in February. The Shanghai Composite Index [SHA:000001] gained 0.96 percent and the Shenzhen Component Index [SHE:399001] rose 1.51 percent.

CNY8.4 billion (USD1.2 billion) poured into the mainland through the Shanghai-Hong Kong and Shenzhen-Hong Kong stock connect programs this morning.

Today's expansion is expected to bring USD3 billion of incremental capital to mainland exchanges, FTSE Russell said earlier.

The US Federal Reserve is currently pursuing open-ended quantitative easing, Xu Tao, China equity fund manager at Singapore’s APS Asset Management, told Yicai Global. This will put the US dollar under greater pressure in the medium and long run, he added, so overseas investors are looking to diversify their assets.

Last month, China removed all quotas from its two major inbound investment schemes, the dollar-denominated Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor and yuan-based Renminbi Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor programs, further opening up its vast financial markets to foreign money.

Three of the world's largest stock index providers -- FTSE Russell, MSCI and S&P Dow Jones -- have all completed their first phase of adding Chinese onshore stocks into their indexes.

No further expansion is planned for the moment, as three will first focus on solving existing issues such as expanding derivatives, optimizing interconnection trading hours and permitting overseas capital to use the omnibus trading mechanism, which allows multiple investors to use a trading account held in a broker’s name to protect their identities.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Kim Taylor