While nobody is compelling individual investors to buy shares, government officials and state media have encouraged the rally. China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported last week that the advance in stocks has further to go, while the China Securities Regulatory Commission has said that market gains reflect support for the economy.
Meantime, margin debt on the Shanghai Stock Exchange has soared 10-fold in the past two years to a record 1.27 trillion yuan on May 7, with an additional 635 billion yuan accumulated on the Shenzhen market. Individuals, who account for about 80 percent of trading on mainland exchanges, are paying rates of about 8 percent on the loans.
“My only wish is that securities companies could lend me more money -- the current ceiling for borrowing is not enough for me,” said Li Feixiang, a 40-year-old who works at a financial firm in Chengdu and invests more than 90 percent of his personal wealth in stocks. He claims to have returned 120 percent on his portfolio since November, declining to provide transaction details to Bloomberg News because the information is private.
How China Inc.’s Debt Fix Is Piling Risk on Individual Investors
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... -investors