Retail investors suffer wild ride as markets lurch
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A month of wild financial market swings has taken a hefty toll on retail stock investors, battering not only their portfolios but their nerves too.
"It's like having a heart attack everyday," said Alice, a day trader in her forties from Singapore.
Many felt burned in China, where booming growth in the local stock market in recent years led to a surge of small investors.
"All we feel is helplessness and despair," said a 70-year-old retiree surnamed Zhao in Shanghai. "My savings totaled 260,000 yuan ($38,000) and there's just 50,000 yuan left now. Who can see a floor for the market now?" he said.
Shanghai's main stock index has lost almost 70 percent from its peak a year ago.
Global stock markets have been weak all year but the real rollercoaster ride started last month when U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed, sparking a major market meltdown.
The gyrations hit a peak in the past week, with Friday marking one of the biggest one-day falls ever followed by one of the biggest-ever rallies on Monday on hopes a coordinated global rescue plan would stem the crisis.
Markets resumed their slump soon after, however.
In Japan the Nikkei average ended 11 percent lower on Thursday, Seoul shares were down 9.4 percent for their third biggest loss ever, and Singapore stocks fell 5 percent, despite global policymaker rescue plans for the credit crisis.
In Taiwan, one housewife was visibly agitated as she watched stock prices plummet in a stock trading office.
"If investors lose their money, they'll spend less and all the other businesses will collapse as well. Crime will be rampant when people don't have jobs!" said the housewife, surnamed Chang.
Jin Hye-ryeon, a housewife in Seoul, said one of her friends sold out at huge losses because she was afraid of steeper falls.
DEPRESSING
It is not just the wallets of investors that are suffering but their mental states as well, said Kit S. Ng, psychologist for the Center for Psychology in Singapore.
"All my clients are talking about it, there is a sense of a depressed mood, of uncertainty, a noticeable amount of anxiety and loss," said Ng, adding that some of his patients have been seeing him more often since the market turmoil started.
However, not everyone was pessimistic.
"It's presenting the greatest buy opportunities in 23 to 24 years if you think about it," said Cecil Paget, who visits the ASX Exchange in Australia about once a week.
Japanese online brokerages including Monex Group Inc, kabu.com Securities Co and Matsui Securities Co are also reporting seeing a surge in retail investor interest as markets tank.
"The stock market is getting a lot of attention now because the market is tumbling. Retail investors are very interested in buying shares when they are cheap," Monex Chief Executive Oki Matsumoto told Reuters.
But the mood at a local trading office in Singapore, where a group of seven retail investors gathered around terminals, remained mostly grim.
"If the Dow Jones crosses below the 8,000 level, that is it. The market will crash and it will be like the end of the world, no cars, no people, nothing," said Tong, a 50 year-old investor.
The Dow Jones industrial average ended on Wednesday at 8,577.91 points, having dipped below 8,000 points on Friday for the first time since 2003.
"Who knows if it's the bottom? You will only know when all optimists are dead and there are no more buyers," Tong said.
(Additional reporting by Kevin Soh in TAIPEI, Park Ju-min in SEOUL, Anna Yokoyama, Junko Fujita and Emi Emoto in TOKYO, Andrew Torchia in SHANGHAI, Mette Fraende in SYDNEY; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Paul Tait)
