Affected by the prolonged snowstorm disaster and the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis, mainland China's stock market experienced a "black January." Over 5.14 trillion yuan (approximately US$715 billion) of "A" share(1) values evaporated in a month. This is equivalent to one fifth of China's 2007 GDP.
The same occurred to the chief executives of various listed companies. Liu Yonghao, the richest man from China's southwestern Sichuan Province, suffered a loss of 1.1 billion yuan (approximately US$153 million).
The West China Metropolitan compiled the January statistics of the market prices of several listed companies and discovered that most of the rich and powerful Sichuan investors/executives suffered great losses on both the Hong Kong and mainland stock exchanges.
Another example, The "King of Coke"(2) from Sichuan Province, Sian Yang, lost 600 million yuan (approximately US$83 million) since the company was first listed on the Hong Kong Stock Market in September 2007.
Jin Xianyu and Gao Daming, two major share holders of the largest pork production enterprise in Sichuan, Suining Gaojin Food Co., Ltd., also lost 260 million yuan (approximately US$36 million) and 770 million yuan (approximately US$107 million) respectively.
Some experts believe that the snowstorm may lower the first quarter China gross domestic product by 0.5 percent, and drive up the consumer price index by 0.3 percent.
Because of market jitters, the continued snowstorm disaster in Southern China, and the slowing down of the U.S. economy, mainland's "A" share stocks show an obvious downward trend.
(1) "A" shares are generally available to domestic investors, whereas "B" shares are traded in U.S. dollars and are available to domestic and foreign investors. (Source: wikipedia.org )
(2) The "coke" referred to here is processed bituminous coal used in blast furnaces to make iron, process various metals, and manufacture alloys.
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