U.S. media outlets called AMTD Digital, whose shares surged by as much as 15,000% shortly after its July IPO, a “meme stock.”
But Chinese investors called it something else: a “demon stock,” or a stock that’s bucking overall market trends and whose rise and fall may have little to do with a company’s fundamentals. The term is much older than “meme stocks,” dating back to the country’s last retail investor boom in 2015. It’s also used when investors suspect a company’s price surge is perhaps caused by market manipulation, rather than business improvements or social media exuberance.
“Demon” is the English translation of the first Chinese character in the phrase “妖股,” which refers to things that cannot be explained, like a rapid increase in stock prices.
The term is getting a lot of use lately.
Shares in AMTD Digital, a Hong Kong–based internet company, surged by as much as 15,000% in the weeks following its July 15 IPO on the New York Stock Exchange. At times, the company’s valuation was enough to overtake Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.
The stock has now sunk by 71% from its Aug. 2 peak, losing as much as $100 billion in value. But shares are still trading at 46 times the IPO price, and its valuation is still greater than that of tech stalwarts like IBM, Paypal, and SAP. AMTD Digital reported $25 million in revenue for 2021, compared to IBM’s $57.4 billion.
No one, including the company itself, knows why AMTD Digital’s shares are performing so well. In a so-called thank-you note to investors, the company said there are “no material circumstances, events, nor other matters relating to our company’s business and operating activities since the IPO date” that would explain the surge in prices.
Another China-based company, financial firm Magic Empire Global, surged 5,800% after its debut on Friday, requiring multiple trading halts for volatility.
Chinese construction firm Huitong Construction rose almost 600% on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in February, while bus manufacturer Zhongtong Bus surged by as much as 590% between May and July.
Stocks connected to COVID-19 are also getting the “demon stock” label for beating the markets. Andon Health, a small Tianjin medical company, rose 560% on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange over the past year, in part due to signing a deal with the U.S. Army to provide at-home COVID tests in January 2021.
A demon stock is “usually a small cap with a relatively low starting price of below 20 yuan,” or just under $3, Lu Daoyin, a Chinese financial blogger, told the South China Morning Post. These companies “must align with the latest and hottest topics,” much like meme stocks in the U.S., says Lu.
Retail investors make up the vast majority of trading on Chinese equity markets, accounting for 70% of total trades, according to official statistics. By comparison, retail traders make up 25% of all U.S. equity trading, according to data from BNY Mellon.
“Retail investors were traditionally the backbone of the stock markets in China,” says Herald van der Linde, chief Asia equity strategist for HSBC, and author of Asia’s Stock Markets From the Ground Up. “Only recently have domestic institutional investors emerged.”
The dominance of retail investors can lead to very different market dynamics, “including the emergence of ‘demon’ stocks,” says van der Linde.
Chinese retail investors may be drawn to demon stocks due to the sluggishness of China’s equity markets. The SSE Composite Index, which tracks all the stocks trading on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, is down 7.7% over the past 12 months, and has logged almost no gains over the past five years. The Shenzhen Component Index, which tracks 500 Shenzhen-traded companies, is down 18% over the past year, and only up 20% over the past five years. The S&P 500, by comparison, is down 6.5% over the past twelve months, and up 70% over five years.
But Chinese retail traders “have limited financial literacy,” Zhang Xiaoyan, associate dean at Tsinghua University, told the SCMP. That lack of experience could leave them prey to market manipulation and scams, such as pump-and-dump schemes.
In early 2021, U.S. retail investors, spurred on by social media and forums like the WallStreetBets subreddit, flocked to companies like Gamestop and AMC Cinemas. Prices in “meme stocks” surged by over 1,500%, confounding hedge funds, stock analysts and regulators.
The meme stock frenzy has largely faded in the U.S., amid a broader slump in markets and a flight to safer assets due to the U.S. Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes. Shares in Gamestop and AMC Cinemas are down 50% and 60% from their peaks last year (though they are still trading at prices 10 times higher than they were at the beginning of 2021). Morgan Stanley estimates that retail traders have now lost all of their gains from the meme stock boom.
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