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For Chinese investors with a sense of history, the nation's world-beating equity rally is looking long overdue for a reversal.
The bull market turned 883 days old on Tuesday, topping China's previous record by 56 days, after a 119 per cent surge in the Shanghai Composite Index since December 2012. Even if the advance is measured from June 2013 - when the gauge narrowly avoided a bear-market drop of 20 per cent - it's still the second longest since Chinese bourses opened for trading in 1990.
The rally's age is concerning in a market notorious for how quickly it can turn from boom to bust: the 194-day average lifespan of Shanghai bull markets is the shortest and compares with the 1,625-day mean for the Standard & Poor's 500 Index since 1965. While Xinhua News Agency said Tuesday that the rally has further to go, the Shanghai Composite completed its biggest two-day drop in three months.
"There's no need to chase stocks at this level," said Wei Wei, an analyst at West China Securities Co in Shanghai. "Lots of stocks are not justified by current prices."
