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Blindly jumping on trending topics easily invites risks.
Source: Compiled from the Investor Education Base of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange
[“Investor Protection: Understand the Rules, Recognize the Risks” Series]
Editor’s Note: In conjunction with the China Securities Regulatory Commission’s special publicity campaign—“Investor Protection: Understand the Rules, Recognize the Risks”—the Shenzhen Stock Exchange continues to release a series of case studies on “Improper Information Disclosure.” We hope these cases will help investors gain a better understanding of various types of illegal and non-compliant practices, thereby fostering greater awareness of compliance and risk prevention among all market participants.
Listed company announcements are an important channel for investors to understand the company’s business operations and industry development trends, and also serve as a key source of information for investors making investment decisions. However, some listed companies, driven by the need to boost their stock prices, may resort to subtle tricks in their announcements, aiming to alter investors’ expectations regarding the company’s current performance and future prospects. Among these tactics, “hitching on popular topics” is a commonly used approach by certain listed companies.
Company A’s core business is providing IT development outsourcing services to commercial banks. Starting from the second half of 2014, Company A has continuously issued announcements indicating that it had begun to enter the internet finance sector. It has successively disclosed the establishment of, and its participation in, subsidiaries engaged in credit reporting, data services, internet finance, micro-loan cloud services, and inclusive finance businesses, as well as “major initiatives” such as forming joint ventures with other institutions to take equity stakes in commercial banks.
Company A’s strategic layout can be described as comprehensive, covering virtually the entire spectrum of core internet finance business segments and showing strong potential to become the next-generation BAT. At the same time, Company A has been frequently hosting visits from institutional investors, sharing with them its operational vision for the internet finance business. Some institutional investors have taken notice and enthusiastically responded, praising Company A through the publication of research reports and other means. As a result, Company A has successfully leveraged the hot trend in internet finance, quickly becoming a highly sought-after stock in the capital market—its share price has soared, surging more than tenfold.
Xiaoming and his colleague Xiaogang also noticed the strong upward trend in Company A’s stock price and were considering making an investment. After reading Company A’s announcements, Xiaoming discovered that the company’s investments seemed to be all hype and little substance—very few details were disclosed about actual business progress. This made Xiaoming start to suspect Company A. Subsequently, after carefully analyzing Company A’s periodic reports, Xiaoming found that the so-called revenue from internet-based financial services amounted to just over one million yuan, accounting for less than 1% of total revenue. After careful deliberation, Xiaoming concluded that Company A’s internet finance business might be nothing more than a facade, and thus decided against buying Company A’s stock. Xiaogang, on the other hand, laughed at Xiaoming’s analysis. “Even institutions are scrambling to buy Company A’s stock,” Xiaogang said. “You think you’re smarter than the institutions?!” Xiaogang firmly bought large quantities of Company A’s stock at the high point, and after several consecutive trading limits following his purchase, he even became so optimistic that he added leverage to his investment.
The story’s development has always been fraught with drama. Company A was placed under investigation by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) for violating information disclosure regulations. The investigation revealed that the company’s information on its internet finance-related business did not reflect the actual situation and lacked a solid foundation for future realization. Moreover, certain business lines could no longer continue operating due to policy changes. In its public announcements, Company A selectively disclosed favorable information while deliberately avoiding unfavorable details, failing to disclose the risks and progress of its internet finance-related businesses. As a result, Company A received an administrative penalty from the CSRC for making misleading statements in its disclosures, and the stock exchange also issued a public condemnation against the company. Meanwhile, Company A’s stock price had already begun plummeting, leaving many investors—including Xiao Gang—suffering substantial losses. Fortunately, however, some eligible investors can still seek redress by filing lawsuits against Company A and its key responsible individuals in court, thereby recovering at least part of their losses.
At the end of the story, we can’t help but applaud Xiao Ming’s wit and can’t help but feel saddened by Xiao Gang’s plight. But more importantly, as rational investors, when confronted with market hype around hot topics, we must remain calm and avoid making investment decisions solely on the basis of companies’ ad hoc announcements or analysts’ reports. Instead, we must return to the fundamentals of the company—especially by carefully reading annual reports and other periodic disclosures to analyze the company’s actual operating conditions and growth prospects—and absolutely refrain from blindly following the crowd. Additionally, it’s worth reminding investors that, for new industries and new business ventures, a company’s operations are often significantly influenced by industry policies and regulatory requirements, so investors need to pay close attention to these factors as well.
(Disclaimer: The information provided in this column does not constitute any investment advice. Investors should not rely on this information as a substitute for their own independent judgment, nor should they make investment decisions solely based on this information. The contributors strive to ensure that the information contained in this column is accurate and reliable; however, they make no guarantees regarding its accuracy, completeness, or timeliness, and assume no liability for any losses arising from the use of the information in this column.)