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Monday, May 21, 2007

Punting on Shanghai Shares - Tsunami Watch


Listening to coverage of the meteoric rise and related punting by the locals on the Shanghai Stock Market, reminded me of the Malaysian market when I was living in Singapore in the 1990s. It was a get rich quick scheme to end all others. Most of my local work colleagues were punting on the secondary exchange in Singapore and talked about the status of their stocks. You couldn't fail and many people felt rich. The thing that struck a bell in the reports from Shanghai was the number of ordinary people borrowing to punt.

Danger. I seriously doubt that the current pattern is sustainable and the realities of financial gravity have to kick in before too long.

I am no stock picker, but it was ugly when it collapsed in Malaysia and Singapore. There were a few people who took a different kind of plunge.

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