-->Shanghai trip report -- Brokerages in China are much more like day trading houses in appearance. Many people do not have the internet at home so they spend a good proportion of the day in a brokerage house watching the big board and dealing on the terminals provided. Chinese born, Mrs. Treacy opened an account with one of the larger brokers which occupies a 20 story building. We arrived quite early and didn't have to wait long but, when we left there was a long queue of people waiting to open accounts. Access to different floors is dependent on how big one's account is, with VIP status accorded to 200,000 yuan and above clients. The VIP dealing rooms are towards the top of the building and the lower floors cater to much smaller account holders.

One can see people trading everywhere from offices to restaurants. One silk shop in Hang Zhou (a regional tourist destination about 200 kms south of Shanghai) where we bought some scarves had a laptop in place next to the till where four middle-aged women working there were monitoring the markets. They told us that they were using investment magazines to generate the bulk of their trading ideas.

A number of taxi drivers claimed to have been dealing in stocks since the inception of the stock market almost twenty years ago and there were some sour grapes at people who had started trading in the last couple of years and made a killing, without having had to endure the previous bear market. They asked the relevant question of what these newly minted bulls are going to do during the next bear market.

von David Fuller, Fuller Money - Report, London.