Of bulls, bears and stags in choppy global markets

If you are an avid follower of what is right now happening in stock markets around the world, you may perhaps say Mark Twain's famous quote is not wide of the mark: "October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February."

I am not a votary of Twain or, for that matter, P.G.Wodehouse who insisted that "You have to speculate if you want to accumulate". The reason is not far to seek as investing in the stocks is not exactly my cup of tea.

So, I was a bit taken aback when I chanced upon an e-mail from an old acquaintance in Hong Kong prodding me to invest in the Chinese stock markets as it offered excellent, never-seen-before returns on investment.