The transaction of Guangzhou consulting international land volume has caused concern about the market liquidity of Beijing Stock Exchange (hereinafter referred to as "North Stock Exchange"). However, the liquidity dilemma of the North Stock Exchange market is obviously not just a problem of individual stocks.

From the beginning of the year to the end of the year, the total number of listed companies in the North Exchange has doubled, while the total market value has shrunk by more than 30 billion. Based on the annual data of 2022, the average P/E ratio of the market dropped from more than 40 times at the beginning of the year to less than 19 times, and the turnover rate dropped from 38% to 1 1%. The average price-earnings ratio of science and technology innovation board and growth enterprise market is still above 40 times.

The lack of liquidity in the early days of the establishment of the stock exchange is a general law, but the liquidity problem of the North Stock Exchange has its inevitability. Judging from the adaptability of investment target and capital demand, there is an obvious structural imbalance between the positioning of the plate where Beijing Jiaotong University is located and the access of investors.

Beijing Jiaotong University mainly focuses on innovative small and medium-sized enterprises, and the scale of listed companies is generally small. At the same time, the investor threshold of the North Exchange is 500,000, mainly institutional investors and high-net-worth natural person investors. Small-cap companies have the embarrassment of "big fish and small water" with big funds. According to the data at the end of 2022, among 162 listed companies, there are 116 companies with market value less than1100 million, accounting for 7 1.6%. There are 30 1 billion to 2 billion, 2 billion to 5 billion 12, and only 4 over 5 billion.

The lack of trading investors makes it easier for the small and medium-sized market value plate of the North Stock Exchange to have insufficient investor groups when the market environment is changeable, which leads to the ups and downs of liquidity, which in turn leads to the failure of the valuation system.

"The starting point of setting a capital threshold of 500,000 yuan by the North Exchange is to revitalize market transactions with institutional investors and professional natural persons. However, at present, most of the targets of the North Exchange are small and medium-sized enterprises, which have a low market value and are not attractive to professional institutions, while 500,000 natural persons are high-net-worth investors with limited group size, and it is easy to form consistent investment expectations and risk preferences. " Some insiders suggest that in order to improve the market liquidity of the North Exchange, it is suggested to appropriately lower the investor threshold of the North Exchange, set up more fund products, attract institutional funds to speed up the market entry, and expand the source of "living water" from the investment side.

Explore lowering the investment threshold

In order to activate market liquidity, the North Exchange needs to form a certain enterprise scale, provide an adaptive trading mechanism and expand the trading investor group, which are indispensable.

Recently, CBN invited experts to conduct intensive "consultation" on the liquidity problem of the North Exchange, and successively published "Liquidity problem of the North Exchange, where are the symptoms and how to solve it?" "High-quality enterprises are the basis for improving the liquidity of the North Exchange, and two major measures may" open the entrance ","increase market making and reduce holdings, and there is still room for the reform of the trading mechanism of the North Exchange ".This paper points out the problems and discusses them from both the enterprise side and the trading mechanism.

A sufficient number of investors is the basis of active trading in the securities market.

Sui Qiang, general manager of Beijing Stock Exchange, said recently that in order to improve liquidity and improve valuation and pricing functions, on the financing side, Beijing Stock Exchange will systematically study and optimize institutional mechanisms such as issuance pricing, strategic placement, sales restriction and reduction; In terms of investment, guide and mobilize all kinds of funds to participate, guide Public Offering of Fund to increase the stock allocation of the North Exchange, develop index funds and special products, and promote market portfolio's investment and passive investment.

By the end of 2022, the number of qualified investors in Beijing Stock Exchange reached 5.26 million, while the number of investors in science and technology innovation board exceeded 9.6 million in the same period, nearly twice the number of investors in Beijing Stock Exchange, and the number of investors in Growth Enterprise Market exceeded 50 million on August 24, 2020.

"In August 2020, science and technology innovation board's declining liquidity triggered a discussion on its investor threshold. Compared with science and technology innovation board, which has the same threshold of 500,000, the companies of the North Exchange are less attractive to investors. " Some insiders suggest that only with sufficient investor base can market liquidity be improved at such a participation rate. Moreover, with the expansion of the market scale of the North Exchange in the future, a larger group of investors is needed to realize more adequate valuation and pricing for a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises.

Tian Xuan, vice president of Tsinghua University Wudaokou Financial Research Institute, told CBN that with the introduction of a series of policies, such as lowering the threshold for investors, reducing transaction fees, and issuing Beijing Securities 50, the participation of investors has obviously increased. In the future, with the improvement of the pricing mechanism of the North Exchange, the continuous expansion of the market and the promotion of the reform of the trading mechanism, the proportion of institutional investors will further increase, and the degree of investors' participation in the market operation and the governance of listed companies will also further increase.

"Previously, the Beijing Stock Exchange has gradually lowered the investment threshold, increased market activity and increased the participation of institutional investors. However, the current strength is not enough. " Tian Xuan believes that in addition to lowering the investment threshold, it is also necessary to continuously enrich investment varieties and broaden investment channels, especially for long-term institutional investors in terms of strategic placement, public offering and fixed increase.

For individual investors, he suggested that the setting of the threshold could be more diversified, such as further classification (such as 200,000, 300,000 and 500,000), synchronous matching and launching the "T+0" trading mechanism, as well as appropriate management and investor education.

Dong Dengxin, director of the Institute of Financial Securities of Wuhan University of Science and Technology, also believes that the entry threshold for investors of the North Stock Exchange is higher than that of the GEM and the main board, which is the same as that of the science and technology innovation board. As an institutional market, it is actually more qualified and qualified to explore the implementation of T+0 and cancel the rise and fall of individual stocks without lowering the threshold.

However, some insiders suggest that while exploring lowering the threshold, we should also pay attention to creating the characteristics of the "institutional city" of the North Exchange.

"From the perspective of investors, I hope to lower the threshold and promote liquidity. But in the long run, the Shanghai and Shenzhen markets started from a low threshold, and it is more difficult to raise the threshold than to lower it. The setting of the 500,000 threshold of the North Exchange is more conducive to the formation of the institutional market. " Zhu, general manager of Power Capital, told CBN that the North Stock Exchange needs to clarify the positioning of the institutional market and promote the transfer of the board, which is also conducive to the standardized development of the market.

It is convenient for institutional investors to allocate stocks.

Institutional investors are an important force in the allocation of science and technology innovation board and growth enterprise market, and they are also the investor groups that Beijing Stock Exchange hopes to introduce.

The data shows that in 2022, the trading volume of professional investors in science and technology innovation board accounted for 65%, and the stock market value accounted for 84%; The total market value of science and technology innovation boards held by Public Offering of Fund has exceeded 580 billion yuan, and the allocated science and technology innovation boards account for nearly10%; The total market value of long-term funds such as social security funds, insurance companies and QFII accounts for more than 5%. On the Growth Enterprise Market, on August 24, 2020, institutional investors held more than 50% of the circulating market value.

As far as the North Exchange is concerned, at present, the 10 theme fund and eight index funds have brought about 7 billion yuan's income to the market, but apart from these funds, other funds rarely disclose that they have invested in the shares of the North Exchange. Compared with the 80 billion yuan scale of the tracking products of Kechuang 50, the fund's heavy positions in science and technology innovation board and GEM are far from each other, and the index products are also far from each other.

Some insiders pointed out that the value discovery function of the North Exchange is weak at present, and it is urgent to set up more fund products, and then gradually change to a good investor structure of the two boards.

At the same time, it is necessary to further enrich investment varieties, enrich financial products with different maturities and different risk levels, and match diversified investment needs; It is necessary to promote all kinds of institutional investors to strengthen investment and research capacity building, attach importance to equity investment, especially promote the high-quality development of Public Offering of Fund industries, and intensify efforts to guide social security funds, insurance funds, enterprise annuities and other medium and long-term funds to enter the market; It is also necessary to improve the protection mechanism of investors' rights and interests, smooth the channels of multiple rights protection, and form a healthy and stable market investment environment.

"To attract institutional investors, the North Exchange should think about what institutions need from the perspective of market players and need marketable policies and products." An investor in the New Third Board market told CBN, such as Public Offering of Fund, that big funds don't buy small stocks. The market value of individual stocks is too small to be selected into the pool of investment targets, and the company's risk control can't pass, let alone the supporting investment in research and development.

At the same time, he also pointed out that being able to buy and sell is the basic logic of institutional investment. "Therefore, individual stocks must be liquid and be able to maintain certain continuous trading," the investor said.