University teacher Li Ping yesterday decided1 to invest 30,000 yuan in leading banks - his first foray into stocks since pulling out of the market last July.
Like millions of individual investors3, the 30-year-old was inspired by Premier4 Wen Jiabao's annual address to the top legislature, in which he pledged to propel capital market reform and maintain stability in the equity5 market.
"We can see the central government's determination to spur economic growth and maintain market stability. It largely eased our concerns about the riffles caused by Wall Street's sharp falls recently," Li said.
The premier's positive thrust fired investor2 hopes for an early economic recovery and triggered heavy trading in the mainland stock market, pushing the key indicator6 up 1.04 percent yesterday. On Wednesday, stocks surged 6.12 percent in anticipation7 of further stimulus8 measures.
The Shanghai Composite Index closed at 2221.08 points, with turnover9 ballooning to 154.1 billion yuan from Wednesday's 127.5 billion yuan.
"We, as individual investors, are very sensitive to politics, and more government spending will undoubtedly10 generate more momentum11 in the market," said Zhang Tao, a 28-year-old salesman in Shanghai.
"We do believe the annual meetings (of the NPC and the CPPCC) will deliver more good news," Zhang said.
But not all investors felt as assured, and some economists13 and stock analysts15 expressed disappointment that no new stimulus measures were announced.
"While financial markets had anticipated additional fiscal16 stimulus measures, in one form or another, the premier's report today did not deliver, except for reiterating17 the supportive macro/industry-specific measures that have already been announced," said Frank Gong, chief economist12 at JP Morgan Securities (Asia Pacific) Limited.
"The market was disappointed with the absence of new fiscal measures, and that's why we saw the key index fall into negative territory several times (before ending on a positive note)," said Wu Feng, an analyst14 with TX Investment Consulting.
The likely further cut in stamp duty will largely boost investor sentiment, he said.
Shang Fulin, head of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, told reporters on the sidelines of the NPC that "there is room for a further stamp duty cut" this year.
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