While many of his peers get their sense of achievement from online video games, Li Shengyao, a 21-year-old sophomore at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, gets it from playing the stock market. He describes himself as a short-term trader who “can’t stop my fingers from making orders.”
Li spends at least three hours every night dissecting day-trading activity and company disclosures to prepare for the next morning. “When everyone else is losing like a dog,” he said. “I’m still making money.”
One thing Li is not: an outlier. In China, it’s surprisingly common for college students to be active traders on the nation’s volatile stock markets, often with their parents’ money and consent, and sometimes at the expense of their studies.