Yang Delong, the former executive general manager of Qianhai Kaiyuan Fund, has reignited a familiar debate among Chinese investors: retail losses stem from overtrading and indiscriminate buying. In a recent interview he argued that individual investors often try to own too many stocks, follow the crowd, and even buy names they cannot describe, a pattern that almost guarantees poor returns.
Yang contrasted that behaviour with Warren Buffett’s highly concentrated approach, noting that Buffett oversees billions yet holds fewer than 20 stocks at a time. He suggested ordinary investors, constrained by capital, would be better off tracking two or three companies closely and adding to those positions over time rather than scattering their money across dozens of speculative picks.
The remark lands against the backdrop of a market where retail participation remains unusually high and episodic volatility rewards headline-driven trades. Chinese trading platforms and social-media-fuelled speculation have made frequent trading easy and alluring, but industry veterans say the long-term health of both household portfolios and capital markets depends on more disciplined, informed ownership.
Yang’s prescription is simple and market-friendly: reduce the herd mentality, learn the businesses you own, and prefer depth of knowledge over breadth of holdings. His view will resonate with fund managers and regulators pushing for a shift from short-term speculation to longer-term investment horizons, but it also raises a practical caveat — concentrated portfolios magnify idiosyncratic risk and are only sensible when backed by genuine analysis and risk tolerance.