Wong Mei-chu, a cleaning worker at a Central stock brokerage, made $100,000 in the past three months buying shares in second and third-line companies yet she cannot differentiate between blue chips, red chips and H shares.
'I don't bother to know what is what and which is which. When I hear some tips, I just give money to the four-eye guy [her broker] and usually I get a larger sum back,' she said.
Fruit hawker Kwok Tai-ho in Lam Tin admitted he was a gambler, but only in the stock market.
'My favourites are small companies. Sometimes, the shares go up a lot in one day, or even in one session. Sometimes, they collapse suddenly without good reason. So it is a bet of your luck,' he said.
'Frankly, I earn more from buying stocks than selling durians.' Mr Kwok and Ms Wong, like many other cleaners, fruit sellers, taxi drivers, and housewives, share a common interest: punting in small stocks about which they know little.
Some of these companies, known as 'small caps' (short for small market capitalisation), have been star performers in the first half.
