Although almost 20 years have passed, Zhang Yun still remembers the first shares she bought. The 62-year-old retired government worker from Chengdu, Sichuan province, started buying shares in the 1990s just as State-owned companies in the province started to go public.

Back then, few people were financially secure and anyone who managed to save several thousand yuan was considered rich. As a result, many companies found it difficult to offload their initial offerings and so local governments stepped in to support them by helping to sell the shares to government employees.

Originally, Zhang planned to buy 2,000 shares of a chemical company that was preparing to go public at an issue price of 1 yuan (16 US cents) per share.