Well hello there, dear readers. Good to see you again. We just got back from a lovely little seven-day vacation in the Bahamas. Fun, sun, and absolutely no Internet access means we haven’t so much as looked at the news in–the stock market did WHAT?
You’re saying 21 of China’s biggest securities firms pledged almost US$20 billion to shore up the market just because regulators told them to? And that was after the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges had issued notices suspending all IPOs? Indefinitely!?
So did that work? What? What do you mean an independent survey showed investors planning to get out of the market and back into real estate? It can’t have been that bad, can it?
Are you telling us, in all seriousness, that when suspending IPOs didn’t work, 745 stocks were suspended from trading on Tuesday, effectively freezing 26% of listed firms locking up US$1.4 trillion in market capitalization on the mainland? And that even New York-listed shares of Alibaba and JD.com were down as traders fled anything even remotely related to China?
What? Surely we just misheard you, dear readers–it’s not possible you just said that the China Securities Regulatory Commission threatened any stock investors with stakes larger than 5% that they’d be dealt with severely for selling their shares any time in the next six months, right? That’s not what you said, is it?
It is?
What about Hong Kong? Surely it was immune from all this mainland tomfoolery, right? No? You’re telling us the Hang Seng Index fell almost 6% in one day after regulators on the mainland announced how much of the A-share market had been suspended? 51% of all listed firms? And at least 30 developers started racking up more debt in the face of plunging share prices? The firms in the same market that mainland investors had said they were moving money back into earlier in the week?
And then trading halted for another 1,439 firms!?
Well no bloody wonder the Shanghai Composite Index went up 5.8% on Thursday if they’d halted trading for more than half the sodding market and used government funds to push prices of the remaining few stocks to their 10% upward limit! Dear sweet heavens what’s the point of a bleeding share if you can’t buy and sell it as you ruddy well please!
…Hm? Stocks went up how much today? That much, you say? Well… perhaps it’s time to reconsider our harsh words—don’t you think, dear readers? After all, if the government’s just giving money away we’d be fools not to take them up on it, right?
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