China’s Retail Investors Race Back to the Stock Market Amid Rising Risks: A Glimpse into the Historic Market Swings and Contemporary Sentiment

Chinese retail investors rush back into the stock market: 'I don't want to be left behind'

Chinese individual investors have made a hasty return to purchasing volatile stocks, but past experiences show that such drastic changes in sentiment usually precede drastic drops.

Despite the lack of formal statistics on consumer purchasing, informal accounts suggest that over 200 million investors in the country – the biggest group of its kind worldwide and slightly less than the population of Brazil – are pursuing profits from a surge that boosted China's standard index by over 20% in the last week of September.

Joy Yang, a 47-year-old executive at a Shanghai-based pharmaceutical firm, purchased shares ahead of the week-long vacation that began on Tuesday. This marked her initial venture into the world of stock investment since the market crash of $5 trillion in 2015. Yang sought advice from her friends and ended up investing in property developers and exchange-traded funds.

"Everyone is investing in stocks these days, and it's becoming a trend across the country," she expressed. "Why not invest in some stocks right now? I don't want to be left behind."