Stocks in China tumbled and the currency weakened on Monday after the country’s central bank announced a smaller-than-expected cut in a key interest rate.Many investors and economists had been expecting Beijing to act more decisively on interest rates as China faces falling housing prices, weak consumer spending and broad debt troubles.The central bank, the People’s Bank of China, shaved only a tenth of a percentage point off the benchmark one-year interest rate used for most corporate loans, with no change at all in the five-year rate used for pricing mortgages. The slight reduction for one-year loans is the second time in two months that the government has pushed down commercial banks’ lending rates.The modest scale of the cut on Monday was the latest sign th …
