I HALF EXPECTED on opening my newspaper yesterday morning to see confirmation of the rumour that the mainland had decided to close its stock exchanges until May 19 because of the expected fall-out from the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome.
Now we learn that the markets will be closed for seven days until May 12, better than the rumoured 12-day closure but still a long way from ideal.
A little more thought from the China Securities Regulatory Commission would have been welcome. And the more thinking that goes into this sort of idea, the more it will stand revealed as lunacy.
The basic rule of thumb is a simple one. When markets go into panic mode (and the mainland markets have not done so) the best remedy that stock exchange officials can adopt is to open those markets further, not close them down. Extend the trading hours, suspend the limit down provisions, let prices fall to their natural level and just watch how resilient markets can be.
Yes, I know that retail punters up to their necks on margin will gibber in terror and that there is also a theoretical danger of a domino effect with margin calls inducing further declines in share prices, which in turn induce further margin calls and thus on to an unstoppable downwards spiral.
I call it a theoretical threat alone. The only time I have ever actually seen evidence of such a downward spiral on a stock market was on Kuwait's Souk al-Manakh in 1982. Some clever people there had come up with the brilliant idea of allowing buyers to pay with 365-day post-dated cheques, provided they were also willing to pay a hefty premium for the privilege. The idea was an unparalleled success right up to day 366.
But markets that operate on more rational principles - the mainland's do so despite interventionist oddities - have a built-in braking system to thwart such a demise. That braking system is called the bargain hunter and he routinely surprises gloomsters in how he comes to the party with suitcases of dosh when there is supposedly no money left.
