Outspoken market analyst's Chinese social media accounts suspended

BOCOM International Holdings

01/05/2022 12:49

SHANGHAI, May 1 (Reuters) - The Chinese social media
accounts of an outspoken Hong Kong-based market strategist were
suspended after a series of downbeat commentaries and a slump in
mainland equities to two-year lows on COVID-19 lockdowns and
global political tensions.  
    All content on the WeChat account of Hong Hao, who is head
of research at Bocom International Holdings, has been blocked
since late Saturday. His account has also been suspended, WeChat
said, citing unspecified violations of its rules.
    Hong's account on China's Twitter-like microblog Weibo has
also vanished since Saturday.
    Representatives of WeChat and Weibo did not respond 
immediately to emailed requests for comment on Sunday.
    Negative comments by market analysts and commentators in
China are often censored and have come under increased scrutiny
as the country's economy and financial markets encounter stiff
headwinds in a year in which Xi Jinping is widely expected to
secure a third term as president.
    Hong did not respond to a Reuters text message seeking
comment on the suspensions and a Bocom International
representative did not respond immediately to an emailed request
for comment.
    China's stock market is among the world's worst performers
this year, with the blue-chip CSI300 Index  .CSI300  tumbling to
two-year lows and the Shanghai Composite Index  .SSEC  dropping
below the 3,000 mark last week.
    Hong had predicted in March that the Shanghai Composite
Index might trade below 3,000 points in a worst-case scenario. 
    The index dropped below that level on April 25, when Beijing
again began mass testing residents for COVID-19, though the
index rebounded to 3,047 points on Friday after China vowed to
stabilise the economy and financial markets.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL2N2WN0ID
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL2N2WR0M5
    Hong had also attributed a rout in U.S.-listed Chinese
companies to China's crackdown on technology companies rather
than U.S. audit rules, warning of potential capital flight owing
to plunging confidence in Chinese stocks. 
    "Shanghai: zero movement, zero GDP," he wrote on Twitter on
March 31 just as the financial and commercial hub entered a
citywide coronavirus lockdown. 

 (Reporting by Jason Xue and Ryan Woo
Editing by David Goodman)
 ((Jason.Xue@thomsonreuters.com;))