Over Half of New Chinese Equity Investors in 2017 Were Under 30 , SZSE Survey Shows
Huang Siyu
(Yicai Global) March 20 — China’s stock market traders are becoming increasingly younger, with over half of new investors last year aged under 30, says a survey of retail investors by Shenzhen Stock Exchange.
“Some 28.2 percent of new investors last year were under the age of 25, and 55.8 percent were under 30. The average age of new investors was 31.2-years-old last year, compared with 36 years-old five years ago, indicating that China’s new equity investors are becoming increasingly younger,” the report said.
Online media and analysis of technical indicators were the most important source of information for investors, the survey found, with investors in China’s ChiNext board, a market for start-ups, having access to more platforms for information.
Investors had an average of 2.8 channels to gain investment information last year, up from 2.5 a year ago. The top three channels were mobile media sources, analysis of technical indicators based on stock price movements as well as turnover changes, and computer-based media sources.
ChiNext investors used, on average, 3.0 channels to get information, compared with 2.5 for non-ChiNext investors. The average utilization rate of information sources such as announcements made by listed companies, research reports from financial institutions and analysis of technical indicators among ChiNext investors was 10 percentage points higher than that of non-ChiNext investors.
Regarding expectations for capital market reforms this year, two-thirds of investors were most concerned about the uptake on regulatory technology, while 64.5 percent were concerned about the acceleration of market-based reforms of share-issuing systems as well as mergers, acquisitions and restructuring. 65.7 percent were concerned about the return of overseas-listed technologically innovative Chinese firms to the A-share market and had an investment interest in such companies, the survey shows.
For this year’s stock market movements, some 39 percent of investors were optimistic, up 10.8 percentage points from a year ago, while just over half took a neutral view, down 5.9 percentage points annually; and 9.9 percent were pessimistic, down 4.9 percentage points from a year earlier, the survey shows.
With regards to possible market risks, some 59 percent of investors are worried that against the background of financial deleveraging, the number of bonds maturing may grow substantially and bond defaults may increase significantly. 57.6 percent fear that liquidity shocks as a result of the implementation of new asset management rules may create a liquidity squeeze in the stock market in the short term; 55.4 percent are concerned that as the world enters a cycle of interest rate hikes, higher interest rates may lead to an overall decline in the value of equity assets such as stocks, the survey shows.
Regarding possible risks this year, China’s A-share investors were worried about uncertainties related to corporate earnings and the risk that corrections in the US stock markets from their current elevated levels may be channeled to the domestic market.
