Likewise analysts at the major banks are becoming more reticent to be openly quoted on stocks they cover. The spectre of unnamed sources in newspaper copy is in danger of becoming the norm.

Unfortunately, the Securities and Futures Commission's consultation paper on analyst disclosure suggests that financial journalism in Hong Kong is going to become an even more arduous task of pulling teeth from unwilling or constrained commentators.

The need to disclose analysts' shareholdings or investment banks' business relationships with companies is going to make for a long phone call when all you really wanted was a quick sound bite. Chances are, the local players will take the same approach as the US banks and decide it is not really worth it unless the content can be controlled.

We are left then with the nameless source who is not held accountable for his words. Should the SFC consultation paper be taken at its word, however, even this could be construed as stock advice and may fall foul of proposed rules to ensure tipsters come clean on their identities.

This was the unexpected twist to the consultation. Hong Kong's mass-circulation anonymous stock columnists are to be outed under the proposals. The regulators' fear is that these columns are being used for pump-and-dump scams, with innocent investors being manipulated by conniving brokers.

It is probably safe to assume that these innocent investors don't really care as long as they are making money from the stock tips. Which, presumably they are, because the columns are so popular.

This begs an aching question: doesn't the SFC have bigger fish to fry?

The consultation smacks of 'being seen to do something' by following the global norm with the disclosure requirements, while nibbling at the edges of deeper market problems with its proposal to curb the activities of 'scheming' stock tipsters.

It is hard to believe that the company whose stock miraculously leapt 100 per cent in a single day was oblivious to the illicit deeds of such tipsters. Nor is there any shortage of such illiquid stocks on any given day.

Share-price manipulation is also a scam of choice for fund managers: those privy to a future placement buy up shares during an 'inexplicable rally', sell high and then are subsequently placed with the shares.

If the SFC is seeking to crusade for innocent investors with a worthy cause, they need look no further than the Towry Law debacle, where two funds distributed by the financial adviser were among four that traded in collusion to ramp share prices in illiquid Hong Kong securities. Investors lost at least $400 million: they await SFC action with much anticipation.

Instead, the bog standard regulatory action by the SFC these days seems conspicuous in its banality. Most are parking-ticket type offences rather than the juicy market misconduct worthy of the SFC's extended powers under a more potent securities law that came into effect last April.

The most high-profile market scandal recently has instead been an Independent Commission Against Corruption case, ironically raising the issue of allegedly tainted stock research. UBS analyst Nicholas Tan has been accused of writing biased reports in return for kickbacks.

Granted, the investigation was the result of a tip-off and thus landed in the ICAC's lap. But it does not help the SFC's case for greater analyst disclosure, either. All the disclosure in the world is unlikely to dampen the appetite to write glowing reports for hard cash.

The same goes for the stock tipsters, should they be the pariahs the SFC fears. And while newspapers may be able to live with the prospect of an ever-dwindling pool of quotable analysts, they are likely to put up a fierce fight over the stock columns. The SFC may want to drop this dead donkey.