For years, with the authorities’ encouragement (or at least acquiescence), China’s securities companies spared no effort in pumping up China’s stock exchanges with fashionable financial instruments and practices, the sole aim being to realize capital gains from rising prices (dividends are rarely distributed). As a result, after years of poor performance, the Shanghai Composite Index soared by more than 100% in less than seven months, from 2,505 points in November 2014 to over 5,178 last June – a level that was not merited by China’s economic fundamentals.