ABOUT 20,000 Shenzhen residents are opening stock trading accounts each day in China’s latest shares fever that has seen the Shenzhen Component Index soaring 183 percent from a year ago.

The spectacular rally of the stock market last year attracted even more people to the market. From the beginning of this year, about 200,000 new stock accounts were opened every day, with 10 percent of them in Shenzhen, Dong Bin, manager of the wealth management center of Guosen Securities, was quoted as saying by the Daily Sunshine yesterday.

Dong said the “Spring Festival reunion dinner effect” was one of the reasons behind this year’s bull run. Family members and friends heard stories of other people making a quick fortune last year when they were reunited during the Spring Festival holiday in February. As more and more copycat investors tried to follow their success, the market continued its rally and in turn attracted even more new punters, he said.

Dong said his center saw a surge in new stock accounts in March with an average of at least 1,000 new accounts each day.

About 80 percent of white-collar workers in the city are believed to be trading stocks, the newspaper quoted an unidentified analyst as saying.

People with lower incomes are also using their meager savings to cash in on the “mad bull market.”

Besides teachers, some students are among the new punters. The newspaper said a polytechnic student used 3,000 yuan (US$388) in savings from his part-time job to buy stocks, hoping he could earn a profit to “improve the life of his family.”

A taxi driver surnamed Wei told the paper that he drove three lots of passengers to securities brokerage houses Friday. They included an elderly woman, a middle-aged lady and a couple in their 30s. “I think something’s gone wrong with the market. Even old ladies are trading stocks. Some people have borrowed money to buy stocks. It’s crazy. I’m worried some people will have to jump from high-rises if the market crashes,” Wei was quoted by the paper as saying.

While new punters join the market, investors who have experienced market crashes in the past have become more and more worried.

Small-time investors who followed others rushing to join the market suffered the most during previous market collapses in China.

Speaking at a forum in Nanjing on Saturday, Fan Fuchun, vice chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, urged investors to be aware of risks.

Tao Dong, Credit Suisse First Boston’s chief economist for non-Japan Asia, said in his blog Friday that “a correction may be looming when the market sentiment is soaring and greed overcomes fears.” He said the Shanghai Composite Index could plunge to less than 3,000 within three months, after reaching an intra-day high of 3,802 Friday, although he saw a strong China stock market in the longer term.

(Related story: Page 10)

(Lin Min)