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Home > News > Business

Chinese rue plunging stocks

Shanghai Composite Index falls for eighth straight session

By Elaine Kurtenbach ASSOCIATED PRESS | Saturday, June 14, 2008

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SHANGHAI

It was wet and gray outside the Shanghai brokerage branch, and just as gloomy inside, as the usual crowd of retirees and housewives stood glumly watching their investments dwindle Friday with each flash of the share-price boards.

"If I can make my money back from the market this time, I promised my wife that I will stay very far away from share trading," said Gu Zichang, a woebegone looking man in his 50s, as the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index fell for the eighth straight session.

"My wife keeps scolding me, and I can understand how she feels, because I'm also depressed," he said.

With Friday's 3 percent decline to 2,868.80, the Shanghai benchmark index has lost 17 percent of its value since it began falling June 3.

The index, which attracted millions of new investors last year as it nearly doubled in value, is down 45 percent so far this year.

Chinese investors, their options limited by government regulations, jumped last year at the chance to make money quickly, shifting billions of dollars out of bank accounts paying only a fraction of a percent in interest to dabble in stock trading.

Many reaped quick fortunes. But many others are now seeing the windfalls evaporate.

"Why is this happening?" said a retired schoolteacher, who like some media-shy Chinese would give only her surname, Zhong. "I expected there to be a technical rebound, based on my past experience, so I used some money I'd saved for traveling to buy stocks last Friday. Now I'm trapped.

"I wish I'd just stayed away," she said.

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  • An investor Thursday watched the Shanghai Composite Index slide for a seventh straight session after China's central bank tightened regulations on banks to fight inflation.
  • ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTOGRAPHS
An investor helplessly watches the value of his stocks dwindle at a private security company in Shanghai as the Composite Index began falling on June 3 and has shown no sign of rebounding.

Click the photo to enlarge. « Previous | Next »

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