A 50-year-old woman surnamed Cao hasn't pulled out of the market yet. She has raked in 100,000 yuan from her investment since the start of last year, and continued to buy stocks, mostly those below 20 yuan each. But she is trading cautiously even while believing the bull market will continue.

"I have pulled out my initial investment and now just use the gains for further transactions," she told chinadaily.com.cn at the packed Huixin Dongjie office of Xiangcai Securities.

A veteran investor surnamed Liu agreed with Cao on the long-term trend, but he was worried about potential cooling measures by the government, especially an increase in the stamp tax.

To his relief, the Ministry of Finance and State Administration of Taxation said Tuesday that they have not heard of any plan in this regard.

Starting his stock investment more than 10 years ago, Liu said as far as he knows most of the novices are cautious. "They will usually put in just 20,000-30,000 yuan at first," he said. "But if they see the gains are not bad, they will buy more stocks."

Liu disagrees with some reports that say many new entrants to the market know nothing about stocks and just follow rumors. "As far as I know, they will read some books and newspapers on investment, or watch related TV programs to get some idea before making transactions," said Liu.

Novice investor Fang echoed Liu's point. Fang did intensive rsearch before entering the market in April and continues to do so every day.

Fang mirrors a change brought about by the stock fever: the Chinese are paying more attention to the country's economic development and governmental policies, according to a report by China News Service.

"I only read international news before," said a post-graduate student surnamed Xin at the Chinese Academy of Science. "But after I started to buy stocks, I got more and more interested in economic news, especially news on interest rate hikes or renminbi appreciation."

Xin has learned to study the fundamentals of listed firms and make an educated decision before making actual purchases. "In general, my investment has become more steady and conservative," said Xin.

There are signs the market is cooling as evidenced by a slowdown in the opening of new A-share accounts.

From May 15-22, an average of 266,000 accounts were opened each day compared with 342,000 from May 8-14, according to the China Securities Depository and Clearing Corporation. The fall came after a major market correction on May 15 when the Shanghai Composite Index fell 3.64 percent.

"We open some 30 accounts each day after the pullback, down from 40-50 after the Labor Day holiday," a clerk at the Huixin Dongjie office of Xiangcai Securities told chinadaily.com.cn.

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