OPINION / LETTERS
Novice traders help drive stock prices to dizzying, irrational heights
Published: Apr 27, 2015 08:43 PM
A recent commentary piece on your newspaper attributes the latest stock market surge to the frenzied purchase of Chinese dama, middle-aged women literally known as "big mothers."

Dama were first pushed to the forefront of public opinion for frenziedly buying gold when its prices plummeted dramatically in 2013.

Since then they have been associated with almost each buying spree at home and abroad and have often been the focus of pictures showing Chinese people's increasingly comfortable lives.

Nevertheless, dama remain a minority of stock investors in this super-bull trend which began in the latter half of 2014. Over the years, around 80 percent of investors are middle-aged and elderly men. Most of them have been for dozen years involved in the stock market or more and therefore are quite accustomed to rises and falls in share prices. They tend not to put a considerable amount of money in stocks, so a slight rally or decline is unlikely to elevate their blood pressure much. So it is fair to say that they are a regular feature in China's stock market.

What is truly notable in this stock upswing after five years of a bear market is an overwhelming influx of young investors. It is reported that young people born in the 1980s and even 1990s now make up the largest fleet of investors who have opened share-trading accounts with securities companies since the stock market soared. These novices lack experience in trading stocks. Stimulated by stories of handsome returns from the bull market over the past 10 months, they decided to join the fanatical team of investors with a modest amount of savings.

A number of the young investors have earned profits of more than 50 percent, so they are planning to input more, even at the cost of selling their houses. But what will the future have in store for them?

Warren Buffet, the US investment magnate, once said, "I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful." But few of Chinese investors are able to apply it to practical stock trading. That's why a great many investors were locked in when the Shanghai Composite hit a peak of 6,124 points in 2007, the end of the last strong note of the Chinese stock market and suffered when it crashed

The skyrocketing stock market and the craze of young investors in the current stage revive memories of 2006 and 2007 when stock investment witnessed massive returns. Back then, only a few of those born in the early 1980s had invested their savings in stocks which, however, fell on hard times soon afterward. And they were on a roller coaster, frazzling their nerves with gains and losses in turn.

It is a universally acknowledged law that stocks are always fluctuating. No one can accurately predict how long this rally will last.

In actuality, neither senior investors nor these novices are decisive forces in China's stock market.

Though such retail investors have successfully drawn the attention of media through their collective behavior, it is professional traders who possess massive capital that are playing a major and ultimate role in the stock market. But with their low-key style and scattered investment, they are seldom exposed to the public.

Zi Cha, a freelance writer based in Beijing