中国股市：人人都在投机？

    一种狂热正席卷中国。中国股票市场进入牛市，群情沸涌。

    在北京工作的一位投行人士说：“这还不算疯狂。”他不希望我们在报道中提及其名字，因为老板不喜欢他谈论疯狂的股市。他说：“这些天市场上升的过快，但我的许多朋友仍然认为很多板块都被低估了。”

    中国股市上涨的又快又猛。这波行情始于今年夏天，也就是新华社开始为股市做宣传的时候。当时新华社在四天内发表了八篇报道，内容都和股市的低估值有关。其他官方媒体则认为，强劲的股市可以体现出中华强盛。随即，中国股市从9月份开始攀升，而且再也没有回落过。受央行降息鼓舞，仅上个月沪市就上扬了25%。周三收盘时，上证指数创下2010年11月以来的新高，今夏以来的涨幅高达50%。

    《红色资本主义》（Red Capitalism）的作者之一弗雷泽•豪伊说：“我认为，中国股市里的每个人都在投机。” 豪伊在亚洲市场做了15年的经纪和交易工作。他指出：“基本面在中国的作用远低于其他市场。从中国股市的大起大落中就能看到这一点。” 豪伊认为，中国的前景并未出现明显变化：新一届领导人刚刚开始实施改革，对GDP的预测几乎未变，那些唱衰楼市的人依然持悲观论调。

    尽管长期前景未变，但一涨再涨的行情让投资者感到兴奋，中国股市在一个月内上扬了25%。融资交易账户倍增，新开立的股票交易账户也是如此。

    26岁的葛天宇（音译）是一名大学毕业生，这个月他开了一个融资交易账户，从而得以使用券商的资金，把自己的交易规模扩大一倍。葛天宇说，开这个账户前他花了一点时间来确认市场已经全面进入牛市。他参考技术指标来买入股票，持有时间从不超过三天。他说，截至上周末，自己已经赚了50%，“投机性牛市能带来最高的收益。”

    66岁的王淑英（音译）用自己的魅族手机在北京的家里炒股。她用60%的资金购买股票基金，剩余资金自己操作。她说，自己不关注整体经济形势，因为这对她买的股票没什么影响。从中国核工业集团退休的王淑英选择了自己最了解的行业：核电。她买了6800股中核科技，这家深交所上市公司为核电厂制造阀门。9月份王淑英买入这些股票的价格是每股16.80元，现在的股价为31元。

    王淑英认为牛市不会持续很久，但她同样并不在意。她打算在年底前抛掉一些股票，并且希望盈利幅度能达到100%。

    36岁的王斌（音译）是国有能源龙头企业中石油的员工。他工作很忙，但当股市像最近一样疯涨时，他就会出手。王斌最关注符合国家产业政策的个股，比如核电和人工智能。通常他会持有半年时间，但情况不总是那么顺利。几个月前他买进了电力设备公司奥特迅，目前这只股票下跌了10%。看着其他股票节节攀升，王斌有点儿恼火，但并不害怕。他说：“我觉得这个领域有产业政策支持，没问题。”

    当西方读者听说个人投资者占中国股市成交额的60-80%时，他们可能会想到自己的那些股民同胞——用养老金投资的老奶奶，把孩子上大学的钱投入股市的经理人。

    虽然中国也有一些这样的投资者，但豪伊反复写到，中国媒体忽略了这样一个事实，那就是中国股市是富人的游戏。

    在中国，资金少于10万元的个人股票账户占75%。而规模超过600万元，甚至更大的账户对市场的影响要比前者大得多。豪伊说：“看到这些大户的资金量时，小散户的作用就不像乍看上去那么显眼了。”

    2007年的上一个牛市中，中国股市在短短七个月里上涨了一倍多。豪伊在里昂证券（CLSA）的一位同事花了一个星期时间做调查，逢人就问对方如何进行的投资。真正进行了交易的人非常少，但每个人都说自己的朋友赚了大钱。

    充满讽刺意味的是，对股市近期上涨提出一些疑问的正是此前激起人们炒股热情的官方媒体。新华社上周报道，未具名研究人士预计股市将回落。《中国日报》编辑黄向阳也发表专栏文章，对中国牛市行情似乎总是在开始不久后便草草收场提出质疑。他写道：“全球经验表明，股票回报率仍和企业的增长与创新紧密相关。这也许能解释为什么中国的牛市延续时间从未超过两年，而美国能出现长达17年的牛市。”

    尽管如此，黄向阳仍认为这波绝佳行情不容错过：“在这个市场，大家不需要像价值投资者那样买入并持有股票。所要做的只是把握好政府的政策脉搏，并进行投机。”

    对那些玩得起这场游戏的人来说，这的确易如反掌。（财富中文网）

    译者：Charlie

    There’s mania in China right now. Stock market mania. It’s a bull market—niu shi— and people are excited.

    “It’s still not crazy, not crazy,” said an investment banker working in Beijing, who didn’t want his name used because his bosses don’t like him talking about the crazy stock market. “These days market rises too fast,” he reflected, “but still many of my friends think the market is undervalued in many sectors.”

    The rally has been fast and furious. It started this summer when the state-run Xinhua news agency started trumpeting stocks, publishing eight reports over four days about low valuations. Other state media said a strong stock market should reflect a strong China. Right on cue, stocks took off in September and have never looked back. Boosted by an interest rate cut, the Shanghai market is up 25% in just the past month. It closed today at its highest level since November 2010 after gaining 50% since the summer.

    “I would argue everyone in China is a speculative trader,” says Fraser Howie, co-author of Red Capitalism who’s worked as a broker and trader in Asian markets for 15 years. “Fundamentals matter far less than other markets. You see this by the violence of the moves in China.” He points out that nothing drastic in the outlook for China has changed: the new administration’s reform packages are just now being implemented; GDP forecasts have barely budged; those bearish on the housing market haven’t changed their tune.

    While the long-term outlook hasn’t changed, the stock market is up 25% in a month as investors get excited by gains following gains. Margin accounts using borrowed money have multiplied, as have new stock accounts.

    Ge Tianyu is a graduate student who this month opened a margin account, allowing him to double his bet using the brokerage’s money. He waited a little while before opening it, he says, to make sure the bull market was in full swing. He uses technical parameters when he buys stocks, and never holds them longer than three days. By the end of last week, he says he had notched a 50% profit. “Speculative bull markets can make maximum profits,” says the 26-year-old.

    Four decades his senior, Wang Shuying trades stocks on her Meizu phone from home in Beijing. She puts about 60% of her money in stock funds; the rest she trades herself. She doesn’t focus on the bigger economy, she says, as it has little effect on the stocks she buys. She sticks to the industry she knows best: nuclear. Retired from the China National Nuclear Corporation, she bought 6,800 shares in SUFA Technology, Shenzhen-traded company that makes valves for nuclear plants. In September she paid 16.80 RMB a share; today it trades at 31 RMB.

    She doesn’t think the bull market will last, but then again, she doesn’t much care: she’ll sell some of her stock by the end of the year hoping to earn a tidy 100% profit.

    Wang Bin works for the state-owned energy giant China National Petroleum Corp., CNPC. He’s busy with his job, but when stocks go crazy, like they have recently, he starts tuning in. Wang, 36, pays closest attention to companies aligned with China’s industrial policies, such as nuclear power and artificial intelligence. Normally he holds stocks for half a year, but it’s not always easy. A couple months ago he bought shares of Shenzhen Aotexun, an electric power equipment firm, which have since tumbled by 10%. With the rest of the stock market rising, he’s a little miffed, but not deterred. “I think this is a field that has industrial policy support— it is no problem,” he says.

    When Western readers hear that retail investors account for 60-80% of the trading in China, they might think of the mom and pop investors portrayed at home—the grandmas investing their pensions, the local manager investing for his kid’s college fund.

    While a sliver of that exists in China, the author Howie has written repeatedly that the Chinese press omits the fact that stocks are a rich person’s game in the country.

    Seventy five percent of the individual stock accounts in China have less than 100,000 yuan ($16,000). The accounts with upwards of $1 million or more have a far greater push on the market. “When you start looking at value of those bigger accounts, the small investors’ effect is not as impressive as first appears,” he says.

    In the last bull market of 2007, when the Chinese market more than doubled in just seven months, one of Howie’s colleagues at the brokerage CLSA spent a week asking everyone he could find how they were investing. The number of those actually trading was minimal, but everyone had a story about a friend striking it rich.

    One of the places you can find some skepticism about stocks’ recent rise, ironically enough, is the very state-run press that earlier stoked enthusiasm. Last week Xinhua cited anonymous researchers predicting a pullback. A copy editor at the English-language China Daily, Huang Xiangyang, wrote a column wondering why China’s bull markets always seem to fizzle out soon after they start. “Based on global experience, returns on stocks are still closely correlated with corporate growth and innovation,” he wrote. “That may explain why bull markets in China never last more than two years, compared with as many as 17 years on Wall Street.”

    Even so, he called this gold rush too good to miss. “In this market you do not have to buy and hold, as value investors are supposed to do. All you have to do is take the pulse of government policies and speculate on them.”

    Easy enough, for those able to get into the game.