Protect Investors: Turn Confidence into Patience
Three candlestick lines change beliefs. In the last week of September, investors in the A-share market experienced an extreme shift in emotions.
On September 24, at a press conference held by the State Council Information Office, People's Bank of China Governor Pan Gongsheng, Director of the State Financial Regulatory Administration Li Yunze, and China Securities Regulatory Commission Chairman Wu Qing jointly attended to introduce the situation of financial support for high-quality economic development.
Pan Gongsheng announced several incremental monetary policies at the press conference, including: creating new monetary policy tools to support the stable development of the stock market; reducing the reserve requirement ratio and policy interest rates, and leading the market benchmark interest rates to fall. Regarding the creation of the stabilization fund, Pan Gongsheng also clearly stated that he is studying it.
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Affected by this, the Shanghai Composite Index rose by 4.15% that day. In the following days, a series of "financial combination punches" also released positive signals for the market, investors flocked to the market, and the stock market soared for six consecutive trading days.
On September 30, only 35 minutes after the opening, the transaction volume of the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets broke through 1 trillion yuan, setting a record for the fastest transaction volume of 1 trillion yuan in history. The A-share market traded a total of 2,593.1 billion yuan for the day, setting a historical record. As of the closing on October 8, the Shanghai Composite Index rose by 36.95%, the Shenzhen Component Index rose by 42.21%, and the ChiNext Index rose by 66.63%.
Why has the A-share market gone crazy to this extent? There are several reasons: First, the central bank's policy stance on reducing reserves has stabilized the market's short-term capital expectations; second, the Financial Regulatory Administration has made it clear that it encourages long-term capital such as insurance funds to enter the market; third, the Securities Regulatory Commission has stated that it will take multiple measures to invigorate the mergers and acquisitions market, and strive to work with all parties to unblock the various links of private equity venture capital fund raising, investment, management, and exit.
It can be seen that the determination of the regulatory authorities to care for the stable development of the capital market from a short-term, medium-term, and long-term perspective is undoubtedly. However, the above reasons are mainly used to explain the general stock market rise, and a deeper discussion may be needed for the current phenomenon of investors crazily entering the market to "snatch" stocks.
In the current market environment, the central bank implements reserve reduction and interest rate reduction, releases liquidity funds, increases the money supply, and can reduce social interest rates and capital costs. However, against the backdrop of the continuous decline in the overall social return rate, companies will not significantly expand investment, and residents will not easily add leverage to consume.
Here, we are more willing to quote the judgment made in a research report by a certain securities company: This rise should not be simply regarded as a policy-driven market rebound in a purely meaningful sense, but should be seen as a policy turning point with strategic significance for China's economic transformation. The subsequent evolutionary path is an important link in determining whether China can successfully achieve the grand blueprint of the second centenary goal in the future.
At present, the global financial system is divided into two types: capital market-led and bank-led. The capital market-led financial system is mainly direct financing, relying on a developed capital market for resource allocation and risk dispersion; the bank-led financial system focuses on indirect financing, achieving the transformation of savings into investment through the banking system. The former is represented by the United Kingdom and the United States, while the latter is represented by Germany and Japan.In a bank-led financial system, banks effectively control credit risk through prudent management and risk control. At the same time, by attracting public deposits and investing in long-term projects, banks provide financing support for enterprises, which helps the economy to grow steadily. Therefore, most developing countries adopt a bank-led financial system.
However, under a bank-led financial system, due to the relatively conservative risk control requirements of banks, it is difficult to meet the needs of the modern diversified development and innovative development of the real economy, especially the development of new technology enterprises, and it is even more difficult to form effective support for future industries.
On the other hand, a capital market-led financial system can use market mechanisms to achieve optimal allocation of resources through price discovery. Investors choose investment projects based on market signals, promoting the flow of funds to high-benefit departments. The capital market promotes the improvement of corporate governance structures through information disclosure and shareholder supervision. Shareholders participate in corporate decision-making through mechanisms such as shareholder meetings and boards of directors, improving corporate operational efficiency.
A capital market-led financial system is conducive to the cultivation and development of technology innovation enterprises. The United States has cultivated countless technology giants through a well-developed multi-level capital market. A typical example is the human-computer interaction application ChatGPT developed by the American company OpenAI at the end of 2022. Taking this opportunity, the U.S. stock market has seen a bull market in artificial intelligence technology under high-interest-rate conditions. The market value of the computing power leader NVIDIA (NVDA.O) once broke through 3 trillion U.S. dollars, becoming the world's most valuable company.
Although the A-share market has also followed suit, performing multiple rounds of artificial intelligence technology chain conditions and emerging as a batch of investment hotspots such as data elements, computing power centers, storage chips, optical modules, AIGC, etc., upon careful observation, we will find that real technology giants have not been born in China's capital market.
Not only that, but some of the domestic technology "giants" are not cultivated through the domestic capital market. This indicates that there is still a gap in China's past capital market in terms of resource allocation and the cultivation of technological innovation, and the deepening reform of the capital market must continue to be promoted.
In the past, the A-share market focused more on financing and did not protect investors enough. Coupled with the previous various acts of fraud and deception that were not severely punished in time, zombie enterprises were difficult to timely delist or reorganize, and the "confidence" of the A-share market was at a low expectation. This makes it difficult for investors in the primary market to profit and exit, and various capitals including angel capital and venture capital have also become impatient.
However, patient capital is mainly long-term investment, adhering to value investment and responsible investment. For the primary market, patient capital has a high risk preference and mainly supports the rapid development of "from 0 to 1" innovative and entrepreneurial enterprises; for the secondary market, patient capital is mainly long-term investment capital such as pension funds, insurance funds, and industrial capital.
If patient capital loses patience, it means that technology innovation projects will be further squeezed. In recent years, the number and development status of China's unicorn enterprises have already given us a warning.
At the end of 2023, after the Central Economic Work Conference, the China Securities Regulatory Commission proposed in line with the spirit of the meeting: "Vigorously promote investment reform, promote the improvement of a policy environment conducive to the entry of medium and long-term funds into the market, guide investment institutions to strengthen counter-cyclical layout, and strengthen patient capital"; on April 30, 2024, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee pointed out: "We must actively develop investment and strengthen patient capital."Under a series of policy orientations and endorsements, market expectations regarding the direction of deepening reforms in China's financial system have become fundamentally clear. In the future, the capital market will gradually become the main battleground for the innovation and development of technology companies. At that time, investors' interests will also be strongly protected along with the growth of patient capital.
Deepening reforms require steady progress, and financial reforms need to promote stability through progress. Seizing the opportunity of the return of investor confidence, we must carefully care for and protect investors, create a "slow bull" and "long bull" capital market, continuously strengthen patient capital, and make patient capital more patient.