Finally, there’s more money than fools in China

FOR years, China’s netizens joked that the country was home to millions of fools with a lot of money. They were called “chives”, a healthy crop that can flourish soon after harvesting, and keep coming up again and again.

This characterisation was not entirely unjustified. After all, China’s fervent day traders did propel the stock market to daredevil levels in 2015. The equally spectacular crash did not seem to leave long-lasting trauma. A few years later, the optimistic rekindled their spirits, raining down billions of dollars onto whatever was trendy, from star managers’ new funds to apple futures.

That audacity has evaporated, however. Three decades after the opening of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, the Chinese have become hard-nosed investors. They no longer want to be the fools catching the falling knives.