老虎、富途、长桥：国家为什么要管买股票的软件

Today we'll talk about

a news story about money.

This news

is related to buying stocks.

Let's first talk about "stocks."

A company

can be divided into many small pieces.

Each small piece

is one stock.

If you buy a company's stock,

you become a very, very small

owner of that company.

If the company earns money,

your stock becomes worth more.

If the company does badly,

your stock is not worth money.

Many people buy stocks

because they want their money to grow.

Some people

buy the stocks of Chinese companies.

And many people

want to buy the stocks of foreign companies,

for example big American companies.

How do you buy foreign stocks?

In the past,

this was very troublesome.

Later,

some phone apps appeared,

and it became simple.

The three apps in today's news

are exactly this kind.

They are called Tiger,

Futu, and Longbridge.

With these three apps,

you can buy American

and Hong Kong stocks.

You can buy with just a phone —

very convenient.

So in recent years,

many Chinese people have been using them.

But,

on May 22,

the situation changed.

China has a department

that specially manages the stock market.

Its name,

we usually call it the "CSRC."

On this day,

the CSRC said:

Tiger, Futu, and Longbridge

have done something illegal.

"Illegal"

means doing

what the law does not allow.

What did these three companies

do wrong?

In China,

helping others buy and sell stocks

is a kind of business.

To do this kind of business,

you must first get the state's consent.

The state gives you a "license,"

and only then may you do it.

But these three companies,

without this license,

went and did this business

in China.

So the CSRC said:

this is illegal.

The CSRC also said

the money they earned this way

must all be taken back.

And furthermore,

they will be severely penalized.

As soon as this news came out,

these three companies

immediately ran into big trouble.

Two of them

are publicly listed companies.

Their stocks

fell a lot in a single day —

some fell more than thirty percent.

"Three-tenths"

means thirty percent.

So,

why does the state manage this matter?

There is an important reason here.

In China,

money leaving the country

is subject to rules.

For an ordinary person,

how much foreign money they can exchange in a year

has a set figure.

Using these apps

to buy foreign stocks

has, in fact, always been in a

not-very-clear place.

You can't say it is fully allowed,

nor that it is fully forbidden.

This time,

the state has stated it clearly.

So,

the people already using these apps —

should they worry?

The state has said:

no need to worry too much.

The money in your account

is still yours.

The stocks you bought

are also still yours.

No one will forcibly take them away.

But from now on,

you can only sell;

you cannot put new money in.

And the state said

it will use two years

to completely stop

this kind of illegal business.

I read this news,

and I thought of a question.

Something is convenient,

and many people use it —

but that does not equal

it being definitely right.

Between convenience and rules,

there is sometimes

a contradiction.

Finally I ask you:

If it were you,

would you want to buy foreign stocks?

Think about it.

Okay.

That's all for today.

Talk tomorrow.