【注：本文改编自笔者为全球知名智库“东亚论坛”撰写的英文文章（附后）。“东亚论坛”挂靠在澳大利亚国立大学克劳福德公共政策学院（Crawford School of Public Policy），内容包括政治、经济、环境、能源等领域，影响力覆盖整个亚太地区甚至全球。由于文章写好后还要经过专家匿名评审及编辑，本文只涵盖了科创板开板交易后三周的情况。】
2019 年 6 月 13 日，科创板作为中国资本市场改革的一部分隆重推出。自 7 月 22 日交易首秀以来，科创板交易一直保持活跃。第一批 25 只股票大部分来自于通信、媒体和科技行业以及制造设备产业，平均而言价格均翻倍了，市盈率达到 136 倍，远高于行业平均水平 33倍。日度平均换手率达到了 40%，也远高于 A 股市场的平均。
科创板吸引了众多目光，因为它承载了作为中国科技发展助推器的重任，也是未来资本市场创新的试验田。这种双重功能在当前中美贸易战、紧张升级的华为事件以及中国政府近期关于逐步开放金融服务业和金融市场的决心等背景下显得尤为突出。8 月 9 日，27 只科创板上市公司总市值达到 6600 多亿人民币，扣除上市各项费用后共净融资370 亿人民币。
看起来很高的市盈率和换手率可能是由于科技行业的特殊性。一个典型的科创企业在实现稳定盈利之前通常需要很多年的初期研发，所以投资者应当将估值重心放在企业的成长潜力上，而不是照搬传统的资产估值模型。
另一方面，来自上海证券交易所的统计数据表明，在交易首日，超过 70%的卖方是机构投资者，超过 90%的买方是个人投资者。这意味着机构投资者急于锁定利润，同时接下来股价可能会出现回调。事实上，第三周的交易热度明显下降，27 只股票中仅有 3 只出现了价格上涨，整个板块下降了11.55%。
科创板的一个重要创新在于用注册制取代原先的 IPO 审批制。在新制度下，只要企业及时、充分和准确披露信息，那么市场，而不是监管者，来决定该企业能否成功发行上市以及能够融资多少。
这就赋予了发行方和投资银行很大的责任，以确保 IPO 信息披露的真实性。7 月 4 日，中国证监会对国内一家资深投行——中金公司——发出警示函，并对该公司两名未经允许擅自篡改客户 IPO 申请资料信息的员工给予通报批评。
科创板还有史上最严的退市政策。一旦企业触及某个既定标准，比如连续 20 个交易日股票价格低于 1 元面值，或者市值低于 3000 万人民币，该企业将被立即退市。在 A 股主板市场上，企业可以在暂停上市期间解决有关问题后重新上市，但在科创板上，具有重大违规违法行为的企业将永远不可能再次上市。监管层希望这样严格的退市措施可以保证上市公司的质量，提升资源配置的效率。
科创板投资者还需要习惯一系列新的交易规则。与主板现有10%的日内价格涨跌幅限制不同，科创板规定股票在上市交易后首5 日交易不设涨跌幅，5 日后转为20%的日内涨跌幅限制。日内波幅的放宽可能会带来科创板市场的高波动率。
作为降低波动率的措施，上海证券交易所规定投资者在进行限价申报时，申买价不能超过当前基准价格（通常是最优申买价）的102%，申卖价不能超过当前基准价格（通常是最优申卖价）的 98%。否则这些申报指令将自动被认定无效。交易所还采取了熔断机制，以在必要的交易时段冷却市场。
未来更多的制度创新可期。尽管有一些降低波动率的措施，在新的 20%更宽的日内涨跌幅限制下，市场波动率仍然可能会很高。投资者面临最高 40%的日内亏损。然而目前中国金融市场包括科创板上风险管理工具十分有限。没有相应的衍生品比如期货和期权来帮助投资者管理风险。因此，科创板未来推出指数期货或指数期权也未可知。
仅仅依靠严格的退市政策并不能完全解决潜在的违规问题。尽管已经有了融券制度并且科创板股票在上市交易首日即自动成为融券标的，但是由于券源依然十分短缺。
监管者已经采取了一些措施来解决这个问题，比如允许金融机构实现市场化转融券费率、降低中证金融公司——国内唯一一家从事转融通业务的国家机构——收取的保证金等，但是收效甚微。显然，监管者还需加强改革，进一步优化融券机制。
以下为英文原文：
China’s new tech board is a rising STAR
On 13 June 2019, as part of its capital market reform, China officially launched the Science and Technology Innovation Board (STAR). Trading in the STAR market has been quite active since its debut on 22 July 2019. The first batch of 25 stocks listed on the board — mostly from the telecommunication, media and technology sector and equipment manufacturing industries — saw their prices on average more than double with a price-to-earnings (PE) ratio of around 136, compared with the industry average level of just 33. The daily average stock turnover also reached 40 per cent, much higher than that for the Chinese A-share market.
The new board is attracting a lot of investor attention because it is designed to boost the development of China’s sci-tech industry and serve as a test field for future capital market innovations. This dual strategic function is being highlighted amid an ongoing US–China trade war, heightened tensions over Huawei and a recent determination that the Chinese government will gradually open up its domestic financial market to the rest of the world. On 9 August 2019, the 27 STAR-listed companies achieveda total market cap of 660 billion RMB (approximately US$93 billion) and together raised over 37 billion RMB (US$5.2 billion) in net funding from initial public offering (IPO) after fees and expenses.
The seemingly high PE ratio and turnover could perhaps be explained by the uniqueness of the sci-tech industry. A typical sci-tech start-up company needs years of research and development before it can generate steady income and profits, so investors are encouraged to put more weights on growth potential in valuing STAR stocks instead of the traditional PE valuation model.
On the other hand, statistics from the Shanghai Security Exchange show that on the first day of trading, over 70 per cent of the sell transactions were from institutional investors and over 95 per cent of the buy transactions were from retail investors. This indicates that institutions were eager to pocket early gains, suggesting the possibility of a price reversal in the following trading days. In fact, trading in the third week cooled down — just 3 out of 27 stocks saw their prices rise and on average the market went down by 11.55 per cent.
One of the key innovations of the STAR market is replacing the current approval-based IPO system with a registration-based IPO system. Under this new system, as long as information is guaranteed to be accurate and fully disclosed, the market (rather than the regulatory body) decides whether a firm is capable of issuing stocks and how much a firm is valued.
This holds issuers and investment banks responsible for ensuring the completeness, consistency and validity of the IPO information. On 4 July 2019, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) issueda warning letter to China International Capital Corporation, an elite investment bank in China, and put two employees on record for their unauthorised changes of client’s IPO application files.
The STAR board also has the most stringent delisting policies in history. Once a firm meets certain criteria, such as a market cap lower than 300 million RMB (US$41.8 million) for 20 consecutive trading days, it will be immediately delisted. In the main board it is possible for a problem firm to first be suspended, then resume the IPO process after resolving related issues. But firms with severe compliance violations can never be relisted on the STAR board. Regulators hope that these harsh delisting policies will ensure a high quality of listed firms and enhance the efficiency of resource allocation.
STAR market investors also need to get accustomed to a series of new trading rules. Compared with the current 10 per cent price limit for stocks traded on the main board, the STAR market sees no daily price limits imposed in the first five trading days immediately after the IPO, after which it switches to a 20 per cent daily price limit. The wider range of intraday price fluctuations will likely generate higher volatility in the STAR market.
As a countermeasure to curb volatility, the Shanghai Stock Exchange stipulates that when investors place limit orders, the bid price cannot exceed 102 per cent of the base price (usually the best bid) and the ask price cannot be lower than 98 per cent of the base price (usually the best ask). Otherwise these orders are automatically considered invalid. There are also several circuit breakers in place during the trading period to cool down the market.
Further institutional innovations are possible in the future. Despite the curbing measures, intraday volatility is still expected to be high under the new wider price limits of 20 per cent. Investors face a daily max of 40 per cent potential loss. Yet risk management tools are quite limited in the Chinese capital market, including the newly launched STAR board. There are no related derivative instruments such as futures and options to help investors manage their risk, so it may be reasonable to expect STAR index futures or options in the near future.
Stringent delisting policies alone cannot resolve the issue of potential misconduct. Although there are stock short-selling mechanisms in place and all STAR stocks automatically become available for short selling on their first day of trading, stocks available for borrowing and lending are still in serious shortage due to the low profit margins for security firms.
As a partial solution to this problem, regulators are allowing financial institutions to charge market rates for their stock-lending businesses and are lowering the margin collected by the China Securities Finance Corporation, the only national institution specialised in margin financing loan services. But the effects are rather limited. Deeper reform to fine-tune the short-selling mechanism is clearly needed.
Qian Han is full Professor at the Wang Yanan Institute for Studies in Economics, Xiamen University.
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