Companies with ‘emperor’ in their names are now winning big on China’s stock market

Superstitious Chinese investors strike again

China’s bombshell announcement yesterday that it was planning to scrap the two-term limit on the office of the president has caused not only the local meme market to soar but also the fortunes of those companies who have chosen an auspiciously imperial name.

A Harbin electronics company named “mighty emperor,” a Guangdong kitchen appliance manufacturer called “Chinese emperor,” and another firm called Shenzhen Emperor Technology Co., all posted solid stock market gains on Monday in the wake of the announcement, according to Bloomberg News.

Rather than trading based on financial fundamentals, ordinary Chinese investors have been known to skew superstitious, making bets based more on company names and what’s going on at the time.

Bloomberg notes how back in 2016, traders flocked to a stock whose name in Mandarin sounded like “Trump Wins Big,” while another called “Aunt Hillary” dropped. And how last year companies with “Beijing,” “Development,” “Construction,” and “Cement” in their names benefited from the announcement that China planned to turn a rural backwater in northern Hebei province into the next Shenzhen or Pudong.

Back in 2015, the financial news outlet reported that two-thirds of new investors in China’s stock market rally hadn’t finish high school.

“Congratulations, people who hold Jiangxi Huangshanghuang Group Food, such great news for your shares,” the AFP relays one investor as commenting today about the meat sauce maker whose name in Chinese translates to “king of kings.”