Local Chinese paper calls for caution against media interference in stock market

Several industries in China have seen stock prices plummet recently as they have been slammed by the official media. A local newspaper, Shenzhen Economic Daily, published an article on Aug. 5 calling for caution against media interference in the stock market.

According to the article, the Chinese stock market has recently witnessed an abnormal phenomenon: media commentaries on listed companies and sectors have caused the latter's share prices to plummet. Gaming, baijiu, e-cigarette and other sectors have seen their share prices plummet under media-led public criticism.

"The media has the right to express its opinions, but it should be very careful when targeting the stock market," according to the article.

If there is only a single source of information, it will be unbiased. A lot of one-sided focused reporting that arbitrarily amplifies the publisher's desired viewpoint goes too far, the article said.

Individual incidents reported do exist, but amplifying the phenomenon gets further and further away from the overall truth, the article said.

The article calls on the media to cherish the market ecology and not to use public opinion to influence individual sectors in the stock market. If public opinion leads to significant fluctuations in the stock market, it defeats the original purpose of industry supervision.

On August 3, the official media Economic Information Daily published an article saying online games addicted minors and compared them to new drugs, causing Tencent Holdings to fall over 10 percent, NetEase to fall nearly 15 percent and CMGE to fall over 21 percent at one point that day.

Xinhua News Agency published an article on August 4, calling for vigilance against the sale of e-cigarettes to minors. RLX Technology, which was up over 16% in pre-market trading that day, closed about 5 percent lower.

Xinhua issued an article in the evening of Aug. 5 saying that experts warned against milk powder affecting breastfeeding. On Aug. 6, Hong Kong-listed China Feihe fell about 8 percent in early trading, Mengniu Dairy dropped 4 percent, China Modern Dairy fell 1.4 percent and Ausnutria fell 1.3 percent.