China’s ‘silver-haired’ investors exit the game with no one waiting in the wings
- Nostalgia for high-earning, fast-paced early years of China’s stock market not enough for veteran traders to hold onto their shares
- With diminishing prospects of returns and competing uses of their time and money, potential investors both young and old are unlikely to dive in
Li Jixin remembers his first years on China’s trading floor like they happened yesterday.
The former office worker, now 73, can practically hear the shouts and feel the heat from those heady times in the early 1990s, when sweat-drenched crowds packed into securities firms like sardines to yell their picks at weary traders.
Three decades later, Li’s passion has faded. Though he is still holding onto around 80,000 yuan (US$10,932) in shares, the native of East China’s Zhejiang province has been waiting for a chance to completely pull out from what he considers gambling by another name.
After I gained a sum, I always gave it back
“Safeguarding what I have seems to be more important than making new money as I get older and the economy slows down,” he said. “I want to spend my remaining years at ease.”
Li was part of China’s first generation of retail investors who are now staying away from the market – which fell to its lowest level since 2019 in late October – as they give up on building more wealth in their old age.
Those in younger generations, meanwhile, appear to have far less interest in investing than their elders as stability is increasingly cherished and confidence in China’s future growth has slackened.
11:31
As mainland China reopens, what is the market outlook for the mainland and Hong Kong?