纽约时报中文网 - 英文原版-英What a Viral Post on Giraffes Says About Chinas Fed-Up Investors
February 19, 2024 2 min 336 words
这篇报道揭示了中国投资者的不满情绪，通过讨论一篇关于长颈鹿的病毒性帖子。这反映了投资者对市场的焦虑和对经济不确定性的担忧。这种非传统的方式反映了社交媒体在塑造投资者情绪方面的影响力。投资者通过讨论长颈鹿而非金融事件来表达对股市波动的不满，这或许是对当下经济氛围的一种调侃。这也提醒我们，在数字时代，投资者的情绪不仅受到经济数据的影响，还受到社交媒体和网络文化的塑造。报道引发人们对投资者心态的深入思考，同时也反映了中国社会对金融动荡的敏感性。
Like many Chinese people, Jacky hoped that he could make enough money investing in China’s stock markets to help pay for an apartment in a big city. But in 2015 he lost $30,000, and in 2021 he lost $80,000. After that, he shut down his trading account and started investing in Chinese funds that track stocks in the United States.
It’s a perilous time for investors in China. Their main vehicle, so-called A shares of Chinese companies, fell more than 11 percent in 2023 and have continued their losses this year. Many investors have instead flocked to the exchange-traded funds that track foreign markets and that have been performing much better.
Putting money in stocks is inherently risky. But Chinese investors are experiencing something especially alarming: financial losses in the markets, declining home values and a government that doesn’t want any public discussion of what’s happening.
With their frustrations piling up, Chinese investors recently found a way to vent that wouldn’t be quickly censored. They started leaving comments on an innocuous post about giraffe conservation on the official Weibo social media account of the U.S. Embassy in China. They lamented the poor performance of their portfolios and revealed their broader despair, anger and frustration. The giraffe post has been liked nearly one million times since Feb. 2, much more than what the embassy’s Weibo posts usually get. Many of the comments also offered admiration for the United States, as well as unhappiness about their own country.
“The different stock markets’ performances reflect the distances between America and China in terms of national power, technology, humanity and sense of well-being,” a commenter wrote.
The comments demonstrate a growing loss of confidence by the Chinese public in the stock market, the country’s economic prospects and the Chinese Communist Party’s ability to govern.