Chinese investors vent on anime-inspired website as stock market volatility rages on

A Chinese computer engineer and lay stock investor has borrowed an idea from fans of Japanese anime and launched a website for people to post floating comments on the volatile state of the Chinese stock market, which has been making headlines since last week.

The site, Tangu, has already attracted over half a million hits, with much of the traffic driven by its popularity on Sina Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter, claims its creator, Stephen He.

At present, it focuses exclusively on the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index, which crashed late last week and fell again on Thursday despite a barrage of measures by the government and regulators to shore up confidence.

The site combines line charts and timed floating comments. It invites analysis, predictions, jokes and complaints, and is seen as a pressure valve after the two Chinese stock exchanges began taking massive hits last week, causing many investors to suffer huge losses.

He, a 32-year-old from Shenzhen, a city in southern Guangdong province known as a hot bed for IT and tech start-ups, launched the site on Tuesday after seeing his own investments sour rapidly and having nowhere to vent, he said. 

“The current platforms for investors to share information are all traditional forums, which are too complicated and not entertaining enough,” he said.