China Investors’ New Nickname Shows Frustration With Market Rout

(Bloomberg) — Some of China’s 200 million mom-and-pop investors have given themselves a sarcastic new nickname in a show of frustration with the country’s failure to prop up the stock market.

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Lamenting the lack of returns, they call themselves “financial consumers.” Chinese regulators used the term on June 28 when it vowed to protect the rights of those who buy financial products, but pessimistic investors adopted the saying to express their disappointment as a rally in Chinese equities that began earlier this year fizzled out. Related searches have spiked since late last month on social media sites including WeChat.

“We’re not investors. We have a new identity called consumer,” said an investment commentator in a video liked 14,000 times on Douyin. “Don’t think about making a profit. You should think of yourself as a consumer spending money.”

The moniker encapsulates the sense of pessimism as China’s benchmark index for domestic shares erased this year’s gains ahead of a key policy meeting next week.

Bearish signs continue to mount ahead of the Communist Party’s third plenum, a gathering closely watched by investors for major policy shifts. Mainland’s benchmark CSI 300 suffered a seventh week of losses on Friday, its longest losing run since 2012. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index touched the lowest since April before paring losses on Tuesday.

“Let’s get our position right and do a good job as a financial consumer,” one person wrote on China’s microblogging platform Weibo on Monday. “As long as we support the national team to make money, we are like supporting the country.”

“National team” is an informal name for a group of exchange-traded funds favored by China’s sovereign wealth fund to prop up the stock market during a slump.

Some social media users said the term adds to an older, self-deprecating name “chives,” a plant that keeps popping back up after being harvested, a metaphor for exploited small investors.