China's Stock Crash: $3.5 Trillion Wiped Out, $2.6 Trillion Frozen

The stock market crisis going on in China is notable for the huge numbers involved. $3.5 trillion ($3,500,000,000,000) in value has been wiped out by falling prices, and over a thousand companies have forced a pause in trading. The combined value of all of these companies exceeds $2.6 trillion, and it represents about 40% of the total market capitalization. This follows attempts by the exchanges and the government to instill confidence in trading once more, but investors are still wary. The NY Times has a detailed explanation ofhow the market got into trouble, and why it’s not likely to fix itself overnight: “Put all these pieces together, and here’s what we have: a rise in Chinese share prices in the last year that seemed to be driven more by investor psychology than by anything fundamental. It is hard to see how the prices as of a month ago were justified, and easy to see why the sell-off of the last month would occur. That, in turn, implies that Chinese officials are fighting an uphill battle in their policy moves to try to stop the correction, and helps explain why their policy actions have had little effect so far.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.