China dances to own tune

SHANGHAI – On a bad day, the retirees slouched in the plastic chairs in the lobby of a downtown Shanghai Securities brokerage show little emotion as their nest eggs shrink before their eyes – the drama is all in the numbers blinking on the big screens.

On a good day, the room buzzes with animated chatter. There are plenty of ups and downs these days, and more likely to come.”The Chinese market is now in a correction, so it’s normal that prices would be fluctuating now,” says Zhang Meizhen, a retired railways bureau worker and veteran stock investor who is nonetheless wary after losing 90 per cent of her investment in a crash five years ago.”My strategy is to avoid risk by not putting much money in the market right now,” she says.It’s been a turbulent – and historic – week for China’s fledgling stock market.With a market capitalisation of US$1,4 trillion – a third of the size of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, Asia’s biggest – the Shanghai market rocked global financial markets for the first time in its 15-year existence when it plunged nearly nine per cent on Tuesday.The drop triggered a chain reaction, sending Wall Street to its worst one-day point loss since the Sept.11, 2001, terror attacks, and sparking sell-offs in European and other Asian markets as well.Chinese stocks rebounded nearly four per cent Wednesday before falling back three per cent again Thursday.On Friday, the Shanghai Composite Index ended 1,2 per cent higher to close out the week at 2 831,53, still 5,8 per cent higher than it started the year.”If we viewed Tuesday’s drop as a big earthquake, the rest of this week should be something like the aftershocks,” said Zhu Haibin, an analyst at Everbright Securities.Analysts say the sharp drop in Chinese shares provided a perfect trigger for a worldwide correction in stock prices that had climbed too far, too fast.That was particularly true in the Asia-Pacific region, where markets from China to Australia have been on a gravity-defying run over the last several months.Nampa-APThere are plenty of ups and downs these days, and more likely to come.”The Chinese market is now in a correction, so it’s normal that prices would be fluctuating now,” says Zhang Meizhen, a retired railways bureau worker and veteran stock investor who is nonetheless wary after losing 90 per cent of her investment in a crash five years ago.”My strategy is to avoid risk by not putting much money in the market right now,” she says.It’s been a turbulent – and historic – week for China’s fledgling stock market.With a market capitalisation of US$1,4 trillion – a third of the size of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, Asia’s biggest – the Shanghai market rocked global financial markets for the first time in its 15-year existence when it plunged nearly nine per cent on Tuesday.The drop triggered a chain reaction, sending Wall Street to its worst one-day point loss since the Sept.11, 2001, terror attacks, and sparking sell-offs in European and other Asian markets as well.Chinese stocks rebounded nearly four per cent Wednesday before falling back three per cent again Thursday.On Friday, the Shanghai Composite Index ended 1,2 per cent higher to close out the week at 2 831,53, still 5,8 per cent higher than it started the year.”If we viewed Tuesday’s drop as a big earthquake, the rest of this week should be something like the aftershocks,” said Zhu Haibin, an analyst at Everbright Securities.Analysts say the sharp drop in Chinese shares provided a perfect trigger for a worldwide correction in stock prices that had climbed too far, too fast.That was particularly true in the Asia-Pacific region, where markets from China to Australia have been on a gravity-defying run over the last several months.Nampa-AP