On the afternoon of November 8th, a group of high school students visited the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE). The Shanghai Stock Exchange is located in Shanghai Pudong New Area. It is one of the two stock exchanges operating independently in China; the other one being the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

A staff guided the students and explained some interesting facts about the SSE. The tour began with an overview of the SSE’s history. The SSE initially started doing business on December 19th, 1990 in Pujiang hotel, which is now located near the Garden Bridge of Shanghai. Later the SSE moved its headquarters to Pudong New District. Next, the staff explained the meaning of different financial indexes, such as Shanghai (securities) composite index, S&P 500, NASDAQ, and others. These indexes reflect changes in the stock market. The staff also lectured about the structure of the companies in the Chinese stock market. It is mostly composed of individual retail investors (about 80%). Furthermore, the staff proposed ETF’s for individual investors, which may help to reduce risk and save time for individual investors.

The visit to the Shanghai Stock Exchange was very fruitful. The students who had almost zero experience in finance got to know some basic knowledge about stock markets. It helped cultivate interest in finance and investment and also encouraged them to explore more in this area.

(Written by Felix Huang Pictures by Gu Yuewen Supervised by Chen Danqing)