Mainlanders flocked to Hong Kong for this year's fall art auctions. Photo: polyauction.com.hk
EJ Insight|Today, 09:16
Forget the stock market, which has shown itself to be a trap for the greater fools who buy into a bubble.
Chinese investors have been pouring what cash they have retrieved amid the crash into what they think are safe havens, including bonds, insurance, big-city real estate and artwork, The Wall Street Journal reported.
“There’s a strong sense of flight to quality, to bonds and properties in first-tier cities,” the report quoted Qing Wang, president of Shanghai Chongyang Investment Co. Ltd., as saying.
The ongoing crash has reinforced the long-held view in China that the stock market resembles a casino and that it is best to put money in tangible assets.
Over the weeklong National Day holiday this month, mainland Chinese went shopping for properties in major cities and spending millions of US dollars at the annual fall art auctions in Hong Kong.
In September, sales of fixed-income products rose 50 percent by value from August, while sales of stock funds fell 50 percent in the same period, howbuy.com, a leading online bazaar of wealth-management products based in Shanghai, said.
Since the stock market crashed, Shanghai Life Insurance, a midsize insurer, has experienced an average daily net inflow of more than 60 million yuan (US$9.5 billion), bringing its total asset base to 9 billion yuan from 4 billion yuan at the end of May, the report said.
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