(Bloomberg) -- Mainland traders rushed to further offload institutional favorites on Thursday, sending China’s stock benchmark tumbling toward this year’s low.

The CSI 300 dropped 2.9% as of 11:18 a.m., driven lower by consumer staples and raw materials like metals firms. Meanwhile, the ChiNext gauge of small caps fell by as much as 4.5%.

The losses were led by Kweichow Moutai Co., which slumped as much as 6%.

“The trend is a continued shying away from overvalued stocks favored by institutional investors,” said Mou Yiling, analyst at Kaiyuan Securities Co. “We expect the pullback in heated sectors such as baijiu to last as long as a year.”

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index fell 2.4%.

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