BEIJING (AFP) – A Chinese software maker whose name is a homophone for “Trump wins big” soared in mainland trading yesterday after a failed assassination attempt on the former United States (US) president.
Images of a bloodied Donald Trump waving his fist after the gunman opened fire at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania have prompted bullish bets by Chinese traders that he will win November’s presidential election.
Shares of Wisesoft Co, whose Mandarin name “Chuan Da Zhi Sheng” sounds like “Trump wins big”, rose by the maximum daily 10 per cent limit in trading on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.
Speculative trading behaviour based on so-called “meme stocks” are common in mainland China, with dramatic swings in prices often unrelated to underlying business prospects.
Wisesoft’s shares surged to their daily limit last month following US President Joe Biden’s poor performance in his first presidential debate with Trump. They also spiked in 2016 after Trump won the presidential election.
Traders were not the only ones in China to jump on the massive attention the attempted assassination of garnered. T-shirts featuring a viral picture of Trump following the shooting flooded online e-commerce platform Taobao.
