The way A-shares are played right now is way too favorable for wealthy, tech-savvy big institutions. Ordinary retail investors are basically at a disadvantage. While U.S. stock market regulations are so strict that even retail investors have a hard time, at least it’s institutions competing against institutions, and the rules are relatively fair. But with A-shares, quantitative trading exploits all kinds of loopholes (like short selling, millisecond-level order cancellations) to repeatedly harvest profits, while retail investors can’t even do T+0. Over time, this kind of unfairness naturally kills confidence. Since it’s clear that retail investors are at a disadvantage in this environment, you shouldn’t touch those stocks that are constantly being targeted by quant strategies and hot money. Instead of being prey in a game where the rules are set by others, it’s better to look for areas with no hype, low liquidity, and where quant strategies don’t bother to go. Even if the growth is slower, at least you’re up against humans, not machines.