Many taxi drivers have given up betting on the horses and turned to investing on the mainland stock market, says Ho Yuk-leung, 55
I don't think the central government's cutting of stamp duty on shares will help much with boosting the stock market, although lowering the rate by 0.2 per cent is a good gesture.
Mainland stock values have dropped by almost half since the beginning of the year. The slump in share prices has really worried Beijing and it definitely does not want the market to remain like a pool of dead water ahead of the Olympic Games.
This is already the second move by the mainland government to revive the market. Last time they announced tightening measures to prevent large-scale sales by speculators as the end of the no-sell period for certain shares approached. Now they are barring people from selling out stocks until they have found buyers. I think this is a more effective measure than the stamp-duty cut.
It is a step to encourage people to make transactions. But think about it; will people really buy a lot more shares just because stamp duty has become 0.2 per cent cheaper? I think it's more a symbolic move to create a bullish sentiment than anything else. You know, sentiment and news are considered important in the stock market.
The two measures are not market saviours, as some describe. But they have given me two chances to sell high and make some money.
Many Hong Kong people like investing in mainland shares because their prices fluctuate much more than local stock prices do. I am one of them.