China's bull market stampede shows no signs of slowing, and the bubble it has produced is getting harder to deny as it reaches roughly the size of the national theatre.
Yet, how and when the market corrects in an environment restricted to domestic investors and a small quota of foreign professionals - via crash or clever management - is anybody's guess, and even the experts are divided.
China stocks accelerated through the latter part of last year, with IPOs of historic proportions and high liquidity only fuelling the excitement. And the trend continued this year.
The CSI 300 Index surged by 160per cent in the first eight months of this year. The price to estimated earnings ratio, measuring share value in terms of cost versus potential returns, is 45, making it the most expensive of the world's major benchmarks.
The unprecedented growth is occurring even as the central government has raised interest rates twice this year and heavily ratcheted up securities trading taxes. More rates hikes have not been ruled out.
As shares have become overvalued, the nation's massive liquidity, controlled to some degree by naive retail investors goaded by cash-happy brokers, has fuelled them ever higher.