After trillion-dollar rout, China stock investors clamour for market intervention as social media posts show frustration at widening losses

Traders returned from the golden week holiday only to take another beating as markets struggle for footing

After almost two years of relentless sell-off, many China-focused funds are on the brink of capitulation, strategist Hong Hao says

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A public screen displays the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and the Hang Seng Index figures in Shanghai on October 10. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 4:37pm, 12 Oct 2022Updated: 4:43pm, 12 Oct 2022

Stock investors in mainland China are hurting as much as their counterparts in Hong Kong and elsewhere, with the local markets suffering their worst post-golden week holiday decline in four years.

Some vented their frustration at the streak of losses by flooding social media platforms such as Weibo and WeChat, showing people are increasingly disillusioned with Beijing’s zero-Covid measures and geopolitical tensions. The International Monetary Fund has joined a slew of Wall Street banks in slashing their forecasts for China’s economic growth outlook.

Others lamented the absence of the National Team, or state-backed investment funds to help stem the rout that has wiped out US$1.2 trillion of wealth from the onshore equities since China slammed the internet sector by foiling Ant Group’s jumbo stock offering in Shanghai and Hong Kong in November 2020.

“Money does not lie,” one Weibo account user said on Wednesday, when prices slipped for a third day after the markets reopened. “Look at the Shanghai Composite Index. Every part of our life is changing because of this [the zero-Covid strategy].”

Some social media postings on the state of China’s stock market. Photo: Weibo

The Shanghai stock index slumped 11 per cent last quarter, shrinking the market capitalisation by 3.9 trillion yuan along the way. Traders returned from the golden week break on October 10, only to take another blow as the index broke through the 3,000-point psychological floor. It rebounded to close at 3,025.51 on Wednesday.