Ting Hai effect
| Ting Hai effect | |||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 丁蟹效應 | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simplified Chinese | 丁蟹效应 | ||||||||||
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| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | dīng xiè xiàoyìng |
| Yue: Cantonese | |
| Jyutping | ding1 haai5 haau6 jing3 |
The Ting Hai effect, also known as the Adam Cheng effect, is a phenomenon in which there is a sudden and unexplained drop in the stock market whenever a film or a television series starring Hong Kong actor Adam Cheng is released. It still remains as a popular topic among stock brokers, years after the television drama The Greed of Man was broadcast in Hong Kong in late 1992. The effect is named after Ting Hai, the primary antagonist in the drama, who was portrayed by Cheng.
In late 1992, the television series The Greed of Man was aired on TVB in Hong Kong. The drama centered heavily around the stock market, featuring dramatised schemes and plots by the main characters who aim to become rich through trading in the market. Ting Hai (Adam Cheng), the primary antagonist, made an immense fortune with his four sons by selling short derivatives and stocks during a bear market. Many people went broke, but the Ting family became richer and richer until their eventual defeat by the protagonist Fong Chin-bok (Sean Lau). The Ting family's demise involves Ting Hai throwing his four adult sons off the stock exchange building before jumping after them, and the gruesome scene came to be seen as a curse on the stock market that recurs whenever a television series starring Adam Cheng is aired.
The Ting Hai effect, namely the uncanny effect Adam Cheng has on the stock market, can be traced even before Greed of Man and back to 1973, when Cheng starred in Romance in the Rain, a TVB drama series based on a novel written by Chiung Yao. That year, Hong Kong's stock market fell 91.53%.
Initially, the Ting Hai effect occurred whenever The Greed of Man or its loose sequel, Divine Retribution (produced by ATV), was broadcast in Hong Kong. However, it was observed later that the phenomenon also takes place whenever a new film or a television series starring Adam Cheng is released.
There were a few times when the Ting Hai effect did not occur. In April 2006, when Bar Bender was aired on TVB, there was a sudden rise in the Hang Seng index by 258 points. The index also rose over the course of the following series' airing cycle: Chor Lau-heung (1995), The Driving Power (2003), and The Conqueror's Story (2004).
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