Trading in mainland China

I am a native Chinese trading futures for a living in Shanghai. We can trade stocks, futures here. Chinese citizens can own A-shares which are based on RMB, Foreigners cannot buy A-shares, but can buy B-shares , which are based on USD. There are about 1500 stocks listed in the A-shares markets and about 100 stocks listed in the B-share market. BUying stocks on margin or shorting stocks are not allowed in China. The stock market and the futures market both are about 15 years old, but the futures are not as popular as stocks, as a result of communism propaganda, ordinary people tend to think future traders are a group of risk-seeking pure gamblers. There are only commodity futures in China, (soybean, soymeal, wheat, cotton, corn, copper, aluminum,natural rubber, fuel oil) , no financial futures , no options yet.
The futures market is closed to foreigners also .

Internet connection is greatly improved in recent years. This week , they publish the 16th half-year national internet status report, there are now more than 100 million peope connecting to internet in china.Among which about 50% percent use a broadband (xDSL, cable modem )connection, others mainly use modem dialup, also ISDN and VPN. The international outlet bandwidth is currently altogether 82617M, 11% increase than half year ago , and a 53.2% increase than one year ago.
Consider at the beginnin of 2001, whole China only has 3000M of international outlet bandwidth, they are really increasing fast.

If you use a bband connection, you will not have internet-related problem trading the domestic market, daytrading or scalping, the ping time is always 0-20ms. If you want to trade overseas market, the situation may be not so stable.Ping time to southeast, east Asian countries are generally fine, taking less than 200ms. Nowadays I only trade HSI futures contract connecting to IB Hong Kong server useing a FTTB+LAN bband connection. It has been fine during the past two year,there is a obvious deterioated condition from early July till last Thusday, it takes >2500ms to ping IB HK servers, but from last Thursday, suddenly everything return to normal, and once again it's 40ms ping time. I do not scalp, so as long as the connection is not disrupted, I can trade. Anyway, make sure you have a back-up ISP.
The ping time to US is a bit longer. At the time of writing this post, ping IB US server is 270ms, and ping time to www.elitetrade.com is 430ms
 
If you consider 33.8Kbps dial up a good connection then maybe. I have a friend that just came back from a 6 month business trip there and apparently this is the level their internet service is at.

Quote from svrart:

I am a US citizen now working and living in mainland China (Shandong province).

I trade stocks, futures and currencies.

Dont know what kind of trading you are talking about, but foreigners are not allowed to own most Chinese shares.

Internet access is very good in China.
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ok, here's a story. this CEO of a company over there borrowed 300 million for capital. Took the money and ran to Canad. They sold the debt to another firm, then another until it came back to them, where they owned their own debt. Lesson: There's massive corruption in China and money laundering is commonplace. But, and a big but, you can play the game right, you can make a crapload of money.
 
Quote from USMCinfantry:

If you consider 33.8Kbps dial up a good connection then maybe. I have a friend that just came back from a 6 month business trip there and apparently this is the level their internet service is at.
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Yeah,development in China is unbalanced between east coastal area and inland areas. There are about 48 million people still use dialup connections, but in cities like Shanghai, Beijing , you will find it easy to have a bband connection. ( Actually now 50 million people in china use bband connection). The typical bband connection fee of a 512k bband is USD15 per month for unlimited access, plus USD1.5 and you will have a 1G connetion.

But if you are on a business trip, it will be much more difficult to find a bband connection, only about 20% star-level hotels supply bband connection around the country. Most of the time you have to use dialup connection, speeding ranging from 33.6-56k. But nowadays you can have another choice, that's wireless connetion. China Unicom ( the second largest telecommunication company in China ) offers 155k CDMA wireless connection across the country. Theoretically if you have CDMA mobile phone signals, you can have access to internet, though in practical use I found the speed to be between 80k-100k. The ISP charge USD30 for a data traffic volume of 3G per month.

Again China is not being balancedly developed. FWIW, I dare not risk travelling out of Shanghai holding a notebook with only wireless connection. The good news is that the things are keep improving fast, maybe before long, trading around the country will not be just a dream.
 
joesan,

May I commend you on your command of the English Language. Your descriptive and informational posts are fascinating to me.

Can you share more about China..?

Sorry to give you a task and I understand if you do not wish to reply, as this is a trading forum.

I personally love to write and read good stuff.

I have been to Hong Kong and Shanghai once. (Shanghai not that far from Hong Kong)

Michael B.
 
Michael

Thanks for your comments,I had to use English (and some other languages) everyday in a multinational company.

Regarding China, it is a big topic, isn't it ? But as this thread is somewhat related to China, I do not mind writing a bit more. I am in my early 30s and worked in the import & export field for 10 years after university. According to my limited experience with foreigners, I have an impression that people from other countries know much less about China than Chinese know about other countries. This is natural considering that China was backward and still has vast backward areas. But as China is growing and being much more involved in the global economy, there is a natural need to be better understood by the other countries of the world. One of the most important point is that Chinese people are peace-loving ones and we do not mean to be a threat to the world. Of course as long as there is competition, someone's benefit will be harmed. But that's what free economy is all about, the more efficient one get out in the end. China is a socialist country, but communism is not popular here. You can find every element of capitalism here, and Chinese people talk in private that we are more and more closer to being a capitalist society.Welfare medicals is gone, welfare housing is gone,welfare retirement system is gone, western systems are introduced in all these vital sectors related to peoples living standard. You have to work hard, or your future will be miserable. Simple and fair . But not until the Chinese leader came to understand this point and push forward some major reforms in the economic zones, did Chinese people get used to liberate the great potentials they have in the blood to create a better homeland of their own . For this reason, Mr. Deng XiaoPing will be remembered forever as a man who brought hopes and oppurtunities to the Chinese people. But still China is far more behind other countries, and as I mentioned before , we are a country being unbanlancedly developed. We can not be too optimistic, but generally speaking, the direction of the path is correct, and as long as everyone works hard for his own future, out country will have a better future as a whole.
 
Thank you joesan...very informative.

Isn't it wonderful that you can write like this and I can read it in America, immediatly?

I believe many Americans are scared of China. Your population is incredible and your land size. The growth of you country could wipe out everybody and nobody could compete.

Your population control laws seem to indicate a need to "suppress" growth in your country. Do you notice a suppression of the people in your everyday life?

Michael B.

Quote from joesan:

Michael

Thanks for your comments,I had to use English (and some other languages) everyday in a multinational company.

Regarding China, it is a big topic, isn't it ? But as this thread is somewhat related to China, I do not mind writing a bit more. I am in my early 30s and worked in the import & export field for 10 years after university. According to my limited experience with foreigners, I have an impression that people from other countries know much less about China than Chinese know about other countries. This is natural considering that China was backward and still has vast backward areas. But as China is growing and being much more involved in the global economy, there is a natural need to be better understood by the other countries of the world. One of the most important point is that Chinese people are peace-loving ones and we do not mean to be a threat to the world. Of course as long as there is competition, someone's benefit will be harmed. But that's what free economy is all about, the more efficient one get out in the end. China is a socialist country, but communism is not popular here. You can find every element of capitalism here, and Chinese people talk in private that we are more and more closer to being a capitalist society.Welfare medicals is gone, welfare housing is gone,welfare retirement system is gone, western systems are introduced in all these vital sectors related to peoples living standard. You have to work hard, or your future will be miserable. Simple and fair . But not until the Chinese leader came to understand this point and push forward some major reforms in the economic zones, did Chinese people get used to liberate the great potentials they have in the blood to create a better homeland of their own . For this reason, Mr. Deng XiaoPing will be remembered forever as a man who brought hopes and oppurtunities to the Chinese people. But still China is far more behind other countries, and as I mentioned before , we are a country being unbanlancedly developed. We can not be too optimistic, but generally speaking, the direction of the path is correct, and as long as everyone works hard for his own future, out country will have a better future as a whole.
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Chinese people now came to understand the population control policy of the government. In the past, China is an agricultural society, the more population of a family, the more workingpower. But with agricutural technology developed and rural areas urbanized,the concept of unemployment become understood.Every family look forward to a better life, but unless you can expect to increase the resources available, then increasing population is not a good way to improve your life . Actually in big cities like Shanghai, people tend to get married late, and have only one kid. Some choose not to have a kid at all. So in my daily life, I can only meet friends reluctant to give birth to a child, or ones who complain about his wife giving priority to her career rather than having & raising a child.
 
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