© Reuters. People walk past screens displaying the Hang Seng stock index and stock prices outside the Exchange Square in Hong Kong, China January 23, 2024. REUTERS/Joyce Zhou/ File Photo
SINGAPORE (Reuters) -Small Chinese investors are scrambling even harder than foreigners to exit the country’s crumbling stock markets, sending premiums on global index funds skyrocketing as they search for exposure to anything but the sputtering domestic economy.
“The logic is simple: stay away from all yuan assets,” said Rain Yang, a retail investor in southern Jiangxi province, who spent last year selling everything but his apartment in order to fund purchases of U.S. stocks, gold and cryptocurrencies.
World stocks went up 20% last year, gold rose 13% and bitcoin 155%. China’s blue-chip CSI300 fell 11% and collapsed to a five-year low last week.
Promises of official government support have driven a mild bounce this week. But having heard…
