The incessant climb of stock indexes is drawing new players to
the market every day, pushing up new stock investment accounts to
record highs.
Statistics from the China Securities Depository and Clearing Co
Ltd shows 421,831 accounts were opened on Tuesday alone. Among
them, 368,489 were A-share accounts. The number of total investment
accounts reached 94.37 million that day.
As a result of this rush to open new accounts, some 6 percent of
Chinese are now stock investors, the number growing by 30 percent
since January 1, 2005.
But statistics don't tell the entire story. To understand just
how much the stock market has caught people's imagination, one just
needs to look around. Restaurants, shopping malls, bus stops,
everywhere the topic of discussion is the same: stocks.
For Li Jianjun, 70, investing and studying to master the art of
investing are the only occupations these days. Though dabbling in
stocks since the early 1990s, Li made his biggest killing when one
of his stocks zoomed from 22 yuan to over 70 yuan in just a few
months last year.
"The market is such a thrill, you could lose or win a thousand
yuans in a minute," Li said.
And, to swing in tandem with the market, the retiree has learned
how to trade on the Internet, thus eliminating investment time
lags.
In past months, numerous people like Li have joined the stock
market party, drawn by the success stories of their friends and
colleagues. The frenzy has ensured a steady cash inflow into the
market, pushing the index even higher and drawing in even more
hopefuls.
Currently, more than 80 percent of the trade in the Chinese
market involves individual investors rather than the institutional
variety.
Jacky Yeung, a 25-year-old Hong Kong journalist, has been
looking to buy A shares since the bull run started last year. He
has already scored big buying a type of A-shares-invested fund
raised by a qualified foreign institutional investor.
"The fund's return is bigger than the ones investing in H
shares," Yeung said. "I hope one day the ban on overseas investors
to buy A shares will be lifted and I will be able to directly buy A
shares. I could then pick up my favorite real estate share, China
Vanke Co Ltd."
(China Daily May 10, 2007)