Bank of China attracted US$84.6 billion in bids for its Shanghai public offering, 33 times the stock on offer. The IPO became the biggest in the mainland, highlighting the demand for new equity after a yearlong ban was lifted late last month. Investors applied for $84.6 billion in shares, Bloomberg reported, equivalent to a sixth of the nation's entire stock market capitalization. The bank's IPO is seen as a test for the country's efforts to move almost $2 trillion in household savings into the stock market. The news comes as Shanghai emerged as the best performing stock market in Asia. The Shanghai Class A Share Index is up 38% this year, a change from recent years when Shanghai was a perennial underperformer. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is only up 2% and Japan's Nikkei 225 is down 7.4%.
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