China's richest stock traders yet to be convinced by Xi's bullish message

Shanghai

CHINESE policy makers have a message: the stock market is stabilising. Their biggest challenge will be persuading the richest investors.

As the boom turned to bust, the number of accounts holding shares worth more than 10 million yuan (S$2.2 million) almost halved in the past three months, the biggest decline among four categories of investor wealth tracked by the country's clearing agency. While accounts with less than 100,000 yuan rose by 3.8 per cent in August, those with the biggest funds fell 17 per cent - partly due to a 12 per cent drop in the Shanghai Composite Index.

President Xi Jinping and central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan said this month that unprecedented intervention in the equity market helped reduce the risk of the US$5 trillion rout spilling over into the broader economy, and bring closer an end to the plunge. Yet for those with the most at stake, even cas…