Year of the Snake concludes, the Year of Fortune in A-shares is coming. The Shanghai Composite Index surged nearly 60% in the Year of the Horse.

The A-share market in the Year of the Snake (Yisi) has closed today. From February 5, 2025 (the eighth day of the Lunar New Year) to today, the Shanghai Composite Index has surged by 25.58%, the best performance among the last 11 lunar years. The last time a better performance was recorded was 12 years ago during the Year of the Horse.

Many say that A-shares are associated with the horse because the stock exchange was established in 1990, the Year of the Horse in the lunar calendar. From then until the Year of the Snake in Yisi, three complete zodiac cycles have passed. Over these 36 years, the number of A-shares has grown from the original “Old Eight Stocks” to nearly 5,500 stocks today; market capitalization has increased from billions to hundreds of trillions; and the number of investors reached 237 million by the end of 2024.

The rise in the Year of the Snake in Yisi avoided the predicament of three consecutive snake-year declines in the A-share market. In the previous two snake years, the Shanghai Composite Index fell by 27.06% from 2001 to 2002; and by 16.42% from 2013 to 2014.

This also makes the Year of the Tiger the only zodiac year with three declines, with the tiger years during the Asian financial crisis (1998-1999) experiencing larger drops, with the index falling 10.86%. The Year of the Dragon is the only zodiac year with three rises, with the Millennium Dragon Year (2000-2001) performing the best, with the index rising by 34.57%.

In the past 12 years, the A-share market’s performance in the upcoming Year of the Snake ranks second, with the top being the Year of the Horse in 2014-2015, when the Shanghai Composite Index increased by 59.7%. In a few days, A-shares will enter their zodiac year, and will this year’s zodiac year see another big rally?

(Source: Oriental Fortune Research Center)