Is the Chinese stock market overvalued?

The Chinese stock market has experienced tremendous growth and development over the past years. It is now the second largest stock market in Asia (after Japan). The increasing numbers of stock investors and the generally upward trend of the local stock indexes transform the Chinese stock market into one of the most actively traded stock market. This study examined the “pricing errors” of the Chinese stock market. The intrinsic values of equities, which can be compared to actual index prices, were estimated using the dividend discount model. Using a database of daily dividend based index prices of Shanghai composite index 180 and Shenzhen composite index 100 from July 2002 to June 2005, our study shows the stocks were undervalued during the sample period, on average, by approximately 0.09% and 1% for Shanghai and Shenzhen composite indexes respectively. The result reveals during July 2002- June 2005, the Chinese stock markets were close to the real value. Another objective of this study is to examine the impact of the economic conditions on the “pricing errors” of Chinese stock market. We find that the Chinese stock markets are much price momentum driven. The relationships of the economic factors and the deviation between the estimated cost of equity (based on CAPM) and the implied cost of equity (based on the actual index prices) showed similar results. We conclude that the Chinese stock markets do not sufficiently reveal local economic conditions