High school stock traders
Beijing high school pupil Gao Feng sharpens his business senses by using an app that gives users virtual cash of one million yuan to invest. Gao says half of his classmates are using the simulation software, which is fully synchronized with information from the real stock market.
Gao's classmate Bao Lei said he started paying more attention to the news after opening an account in the virtual stock market, acquiring a flood of new terminology such as the "One Belt and One Road Initiative."
Bao, who is a class monitor, said pupils used to talk predominantly about homework or sports matches during breaks, but now the stock market is a hot topic of discussion.
More like gambling
If it's too early for high school students to be playing stock simulation games, UIBE and other universities have courses that allow students to practice trading stocks in a virtual space.
Professor Yan Yujun, a Securities Investment Analysis teacher at UIBE, said more students are showing an interest in his course since China's stock market started its bull run two months ago.
Yan said he hopes his students develop logical analysis through the simulation and focus less on profit making.
But for students like Ke Yong and Zhang Xu from the School of Mechanical Engineering at the Beijing Institute of Technology, textbook theories of technical analysis don't always work well with China's volatile stock market. These young investors rely more on "information" and treat the market as they would gamble, the newspaper says.
The survey shows that 51 percent of student investors care less about the risks and want to make a fortune through the surging market. A student majoring in Chinese language at Hunan Normal University says he just "feels" the market will continue to rise until the end of the year, although he can't give specific reasons.
Luan Miao shares this optimism, saying the government will control the risk despite bubbles in the market. Luan has invested 30,000 yuan, but she admits she has no idea how the market runs.
(All names in the report are aliases.)
