China’s Moms and Dads Aren’t Buying Stocks. They Can’t Afford More Losses.

“I’ve never seen people this pessimistic,” said Beijing hair stylist Wu Ming, who trades Chinese stocks on his phone when traffic in his salon is slow. The pessimism Wu refers to applies to the Chinese and Hong Kong stock markets, which combined have seen nearly $6 trillion wiped away since their most recent peak three years ago. A large proportion of Chinese citizens directly invest in its stock markets compared with the West, where professional institutional investors dominate, so there is much direct exposure to average citizens with little knowledge of the whims of the market.