Business Channel 2007-02-28&0301

（单词翻译）

Never in the brief history of China's stock market has there been a boom like this, and small-time investors¹ are grabbing the bull run by the horns. Among them, Zhu Shuliang, he's been following his small portfolio² everyday for the past 12 years at this Beijing brokerage. "Every month," he says, "more and more are joining in on the hard-wooden benches, watching the electronic numbers tick by ." "Most come here for one reason," he told me, "they win some and then they lose some, and then they have to win it back."

Casinos are illegal on China's mainland, and analysts³ warn the stock market has become the next best thing.

They love playing the stock market, ah, but the trouble with the stock market is that it is not, not, it bears no relation to the economy, it bears no relation to the health of the companies. It's like a parallel universe.

In recent weeks, there have been repeated government warnings that most shares are overvalued and a bubble could be in the making. Despite that, though, it seems many Chinese investors just don't care. They want a piece of the action of China's booming economy and this is the place they come to get it.

And to do that, there is anecdotal evidence that growing number are willing to put their homes out for cash. At the Bao Rui Tong pawnshop, luxury cars fill the lot outside, but most of the business, says the manager, is from customers pawning⁴ real estate.

With the stock market so strong, we've been advising our customers not to spend their money irrationally⁶ on stocks.

In a country where Communist leaders once declared "to get rich is glorious", a little irrational⁵ exuberance⁷ seems only to be expected. But many of China's new, small-time investors could still learn the hard way that often what goes up also comes down.

John Vause, CNN, Beijing.