Securities Fraud

Abstract

China’s stock market has experienced tremendous growth and development in the less than 25 years since the inception of the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE) in 1990. According to data published by the China Securities Journal, China’s stock market capitalization even surpassed the nation’s 2006 GDP of 21.087 trillion RMB yuan (US$2.77 trillion). More recently, the CSRC (2014) reported that the nation’s stock market capitalization made up 42 percent of the nation’s 2013 GDP (US$9.24 trillion). Behind the often-misleading façade of statistics, however, the Chinese market is notorious for fraud and market abuses, among which the biggest problems are price manipulation and insider trading. Players bid up securities prices by spreading false, favorable information about the issuer. They then dump the securities to make profits.