I finally saw a story on the stock market that made me realize the complete disconnect between reality and fantasy. This is not a China story — one could find lots of loony speculators, brokers and market analysts in the U.S., or UK, etc.

But the recent gyrations of the market here tell me that it is not a good barometer of the economy (if it ever was), that the value of the Shanghai exchange should be ignored as much as possible, and that people would generally be better off if they pretended that the stock market in China didn’t exist at all.

Here is the article that was the straw that broke the camel’s back, the one that jumped the shark, the last bit of inaneity that made me break down and giggle so hard that my cat had to slap me back to my senses.

Enjoy.

Xie Xianqing, a peasant from Sichuan province with only 3 years of formal education, who has made and lost several fortunes by playing the Chinese stock market.

“He purchased shares in Zhongjin Gold Corporation(????) for 66 yuan. He continued purchasing them until they were over 90 yuan in price. He patiently held them until they reached more than 150 yuan (double the purchasing price) before selling them to earn an ample profit. He purchased shares in Dalong Real-estate (????) at 12 yuan, and sold them for 17 yuan, earning a profit of over 40% in the space of only 7 trading days. He has  purchased shares in Dongbei Securities, Yu Development, and other companies.

This is the current record of rural ’share genius’ Xie Xianqing (???). In 1991, Xie Xianqing invested 60,00 yuan in the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, and within the space of a year his assets reached 1 million yuan. By 1993, his assets exceeded 10 million yuan. In the over ten years since then, he has invested in numerous markets, including futures and foreign currency, losing and regaining tens of millions of yuan. In his life he has already made and lost fortunes on several occasions.” (Sohu, via ChinaNewsWrap)

I know this is completely unnecessary, but just in case you were snoozing during that last bit, let me emphasize that this rube “made and lost fortunes on several occasions.”

I’ll tell you what happened here. This guy took a small amount of money, got lucky, and hit it big. He then made some bad decisions and lost it all. Should be the end of the story, but what probably happened is that this “genius” got the attention of some other “geniuses” out there with disposable income, who gave some to him to play with. This cycle repeated itself many times over, apparently.

Someone out there is publicizing the antics of a gambling addict and trying to build him up into a folk hero. Ordinarily, I would point out that perhaps the reason why he keeps losing his (and other peoples’) money is that he only had three years of formal schooling.

However, this is the stock market we are talking about, and education and training doesn’t seem to correlate all that well with good investment decisions.

Someone put me out of my misery.