Chinese stocks continue to fall, number of complaints on the US Embassy's Weibo soared to 140,000

Feb 04, 2024

Taipei [Taiwan], February 4 (ANI/CNA): Chinese stocks have only 4 transactions left before the Lunar New Year closure. On the same day, the China Securities Regulatory Commission issued a statement today to "stabilize expectations and confidence."
At the same time, under the Giraffe post on the Weibo of the US Embassy in China, there were 1,40,000 comments about dissatisfaction with the performance of the Chinese stock market. Some financial community accounts tried to analyze the reasons for the continuous decline of A shares.
How miserable is the Chinese stock market? Articles published on the 3rd and 4th by the financial self-media "Luosu Finance Research" and the WeChat public account "Value Line" of Nanjing Value Line Data Technology Research Institute Co., Ltd. pointed out that since the beginning of 2024 to February 2, the Shanghai Composite Index has fallen by 8.2 per cent, but the rise in value stocks and large-cap stocks concealed the plunge in small and medium-sized stocks.
The indices that can truly reflect the trends of most stocks in the market are actually the CSI 1000 Index, CSI 500 Index, and GEM Index. These indices include about 2,000 listed companies. Most ordinary investors buy the constituent stocks of these indices. .
From the beginning of 2024 to February 2, the CSI 1000 Index plummeted 22.3 per cent, the ChiNext Index plummeted 18 per cent, and the CSI 500 Index plummeted 16 per cent. In addition, the BSE 50 Index plummeted 28.6 per cent, and the Science and Technology Innovation 50 Index plummeted 21 per cent. Moreover, China's stock market has fallen for three consecutive years since 2021. These data are just over a month into the fourth year of the bear market.
There are 212 million registered shareholders in China, and there are at least over 100 million active shareholders. After the authorities demanded "singing the bright theory of China's economy", strictly controlled the speeches of financial media and celebrities, and the Chinese Ministry of State Security elevated economic pessimism to a national security issue, it has become difficult for the Chinese media to see honest and in-depth discussions on economic and financial issues. According to reports, investors have nowhere to vent their emotions.
On February 2, the People's Daily published a report on its third page titled "The entire country is filled with optimism." It was originally regarded as a "joke" by many netizens, but it also became the catalyst for strong emotional contrast among stock investors.
At the close of the afternoon that day, the three major indexes hit new lows in the broad band. Among them, the Shanghai Composite Index once fell to 2666.33 points during the session, setting a new low since the end of March 2020, and finally closed at 2730.15 points.
That night, a large number of netizens began to express their dissatisfaction with A-shares and the Chinese government through the comment section of the Weibo account "US Embassy in China" on posts about giraffe protection, and even called on the US to disclose the properties of Chinese officials in the United States. Although the network administrator deleted some particularly popular comments, as of the evening of February 4, the number of comments on this post had accumulated to 140,000.
Today's article on the WeChat public account "Value Line" said, "I still remember after the Spring Festival last year, everyone said that the post-epidemic recovery would require a big effort. I never expected that it would be a big fight before this Spring Festival." He also pointed out that this year's Spring Festival, hundreds of millions of Chinese stock investors will inevitably spend it in pain.
There are multiple factors for the stock market decline. An article published by "Logistics Finance Research" yesterday pointed out that starting in 2021, China's exports have weakened due to factors such as the impact of the epidemic, real estate has declined under strict supervision, and the United States has strongly raised interest rates. Factors such as the Chinese stock market have begun to decline. Bear market.
However, the recent plunge in small and medium-sized stocks, the article believes, is related to several factors, such as: the flow of funds from small and medium-sized stocks to large-cap stocks, triggering the plunge in small and medium-sized stocks; the "money-losing effect + panic psychology" has led to a large number of retail investors cutting their flesh, exacerbating the market plunge; The expectation of "snowball product liquidation" intensified panic and the stock market continued to plummet.
Snowball products refer to "snowball-type automatic knock-in and knock-out brokerage income certificates". They are financial derivatives issued by securities firms and are often linked to stocks or indexes, most of which are the CSI 500 Index. On January 17, there were market rumors that because the CSI 500 Index had fallen by more than 25 per cent in the past two years, the relevant Snowball products had lost all principal and interest. Related rumors intensified the decline in the stock market.
However, some analysts believe that the main reason is that there are no key changes in economic data and policies, and stock market investors therefore lack the confidence to buy. (ANI/CNA)