Buying stock?

[Pengyou]

Has anyone purchased stock in a Chinese company from a Chinese stock market?  If so, I am interested in hearing your experiences. I have read some things online...but....well, online readings and reality are often quite different here.

[zhouhaochen]

I guess anything I write on here will be an online reading as well

Foreigners are not allowed to purchase standard shares in China. There is a special class of shares foreigners can buy that is worth less money and have less power. A friend of mine bought quite a few of those a few years back and I could ask him, just that every time someone mentiones that his eyes fill with tears as he remembers how he lost his whole life's savings within less than a year....

[roddy]

If you aren't an experienced and successful investor outside of China, stay away. If you are an experienced and successful investor outside of China, retire. 

[gato]

If you look on amazon, there are quite a few books on the topic.

[kdavid]

Several years ago my wife and I invested in essentially what was a Chinese mutual fund.

 

Overall, back in 2009ish, the "best" company lacked transparency and clarity. I had no idea what we were buying, and neither did my wife. (We bought into it because "everyone" recommended it. In the end, we lost about 20%. Thankfully we didn't invest much.)

 

If you have some extra cash and you're interested in investing, I recommend you check out "Mutual Fund Mastery" by Stephen Janachowski. Additionally, use E*Trade.

 

There are a number of mutual funds and ETFs which target China. I had been buying into one somewhat consistently since 2008, but recently sold my shares and moved it all over to a domestic (i.e. US) fund which represents a large amount of my holdings.