China Stocks Close Morning Lower as Precious Metals Slide; Agriculture and CRO Buck Trend

The session's tell is the split between index-level softness and sector rotation: precious metals, a global-macro proxy, sold off hard while agriculture and CRO — both domestic-policy sensitive — drew bids. With turnover running at 1.25 trillion yuan and breadth heavily negative, the decline looks broad rather than concentrated, which matters for how sustainable any rebound in the lagging sectors proves. Whether the metals weakness reflects positioning around external rate expectations or domestic profit-taking is the open question, and it will likely set the tone for the next session.