' 股市 "過山車" (gu shi "guo shan che"): Stock market 'roller coaster

The Chinese stock market experienced a "black Tuesday" this week, as its key index fluctuated by 9 percent in one day. Some investors said that they were busy counting money in the morning, then having a heart attack in the afternoon because of the sharp fall in their wealth.

The Shanghai Securities Composite Index, the key index for the Chinese stock market, rose to more than 3,000 from below 2,000 last week after the central bank lowered the benchmark interest rate for one-year loans by 0.4 percentage points.

This was the first large surge in the world's second-largest economy in seven years, after the 2008 financial crisis pulled the Shanghai stock index down from 6,000 to 2,000 over the past seven years. Compared with its peak in 2007, the Chinese stock market has recovered by just 50 percent. Statistics show the brokerage industry surged by 50 percent this time, while the insurance industry was up 40 percent and the banking industry 30 percent. The Chinese stock market is not as mature as the ones in New York, Frankfort, London and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. If Chinese investors are as immature as the market, they will easily be blinded by a temporary boom should the government introduce some stimulus measures to ease the downward pressure on the Chinese economy.