Shanghai Stocks dive 45% since October

Shanghai Stocks dive 45% since October. You think you've got problems. What if you were an unwise investor in Shanghai Stocks?

Begin quote." The Shanghai composite index has plunged 45 percent from its high, reached last October. The first quarter of this year, which ended Monday with a huge sell-off, was the worst ever for the market.

Suddenly, millions of small investors who were crowding into brokerage houses, spending the entire day there playing cards, trading stocks, eating noodles and cheering on the markets with other day traders and retirees, are feeling depressed and angry.

"These days my family quarrels a lot," says Zhang Liying, 55, a retired hotel waitress who with her husband invested all their savings in the stock market. “My husband asked me to sell; I wanted to hold for a while. Now my husband condemns me as so stupid that we lost our family’s savings.” endquote

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/02/business/worldbusiness/02yuan.html?em&ex=
1207281600&en=745dbfe9028251e4&ei=5087%0A

The article at the above URL is called "To see a stock Market bubble bursting, Look at Shanghai" in the new york times "online" published april 2nd, 2008

Reading about Chinese citizens who have lost everything in this crash and who likely won't be able to ever retire because of it is very sobering. Just remember this when you are feeling sorry for yourself here in the US or Europe.

Though the suffering is widespread in the US because of the subprime and sharklike hedge fund investors and others selling short Bear Stearns and other investment banks still most people here haven't lost up to 50% of the value of their stock portfolios like in Shanghai.