After Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign emptied the VIP baccarat tables in Macau causing gaming revenue to plunge 40% month after painful month, China’s stock market miracle might well have functioned as a convenient outlet for the gambling propensities of the country’s ultra rich.
That all came to a rather unceremonious end three weeks ago when the unwind of as much as CNY1 trillion in backdoor margin lending triggered a terrifying 30% collapse in Chinese equities.