Market insights - What is the A-share market?

Investors who venture into the world of Chinese equities face an alphabet soup of seemingly random letters. There are A-shares, H-shares, S-chips and P-chips to name just a few (see table below). These letters represent various attempts to develop the equity market in a country where people traded the first shares as long ago as the 1860s. But something resembling a modern stock market, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, didn’t start operations until 1 December 1990. Shenzhen beat Shanghai as the first exchange of the modern era by some three weeks. A-shares are listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen. The Hong Kong Stock Exchange, a forerunner to the city’s current bourse, began operations in 1914 but developed under British colonial rule. Investors view Hong Kong as a separate and distinct market.