At the end of the first half of 2023, the A-share market finally welcomed a general rise, with the Shanghai Composite Index successfully breaking through the 3,200 point mark, closing at 3,202 points.

However, this good news pales in comparison.

The Italian stock market closed above the high point before 2008 and rose by 19% in the first half of 2023.

Among the world's major economies, how many countries still struggle to surpass the pre-subprime crisis high in their stock markets?

Apart from China's A-shares, there are really not many.

The A-share market performed quite well on the last day of the first half of the year, with the Shanghai Composite Index rising by 0.62% by the close, successfully returning above the 3,200 point mark, and the cumulative increase for the entire first half of 2023 reached 3.65%.

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The Shenzhen Component Index also maintained its position without falling during this half-year.

Unfortunately, both the CSI 300 Index and the ChiNext Index were down.

If we compare with the United States, the CSI 300 Index is equivalent to the S&P 500 Index in the U.S., and the ChiNext Index is equivalent to the Nasdaq Composite Index in the U.S., but a comparison shows that this year's performance is much worse.

This year, the U.S. economy has faced many problems, with a string of bank bankruptcies in the first quarter and a near default crisis on U.S. debt in the second quarter.

During this period, the Federal Reserve also raised interest rates several times.

Despite this, the S&P 500 Index rose by 15.9% in the first half of the year, far exceeding the CSI 300 Index.

The Nasdaq Composite Index even rose by 31.7%, leading the ChiNext Index by as much as 37 percentage points.

The U.S. stock market is a clear winner.

Another piece of news may be a greater blow to A-share investors.

Do you remember the subprime crisis in 2008?

At that time, the global stock market was almost halved, and China's Shanghai Composite Index also fell from 6,124 points to 1,600 points.

Now, 15 years have passed since 2008, and we find that there are very few stock markets that have not exceeded the high point of that year.

The Italian stock index closed at 28,230.83 points in the early morning today, setting a new high since 2008.

Prior to this, France, Germany, and the UK have all set historical highs, already surpassing the positions before the subprime crisis.

The most exaggerated is the United States, where the S&P 500 Index's highest position before the subprime crisis was just under 1,600 points, but now it has reached 4,450 points, with the highest position previously reaching over 4,800 points.

The Nasdaq Composite Index's highest point before the subprime crisis was 2,800 points, and it had already set a new historical record in 2012, with the Nasdaq Composite Index now at 13,787 points.

The Shanghai Composite Index was at its highest at 6,124 points, but now it is only at 3,200 points.

Of course, it once reached 5,178 points in 2015, but that was not a moment that made investors happy, but instead led many people to experience multiple days of thousands of stock limit-downs after hesitating for a period of time.

We all say that Japan's economy has encountered a sluggish 30 years, but let's take a look at the Japanese stock market, which is speechless.

Before the global outbreak of the subprime crisis in 2008, the Nikkei 225 Index exceeded 18,000 points, and then fell to below 7,300 points at its lowest.

However, it had already recovered its losses by the beginning of 2015, and the Nikkei 225 Index has now reached a new high in 30 years, breaking through 33,000 points.

Even if we don't look at too long a record and only look at this year, the performance of A-shares is not even as good as that of Europe, which is in a crisis.

This year, Italy, the third-largest economy in the eurozone, has risen by 19.08%, while the largest economy, Germany, has risen by 15.98%, and the second-largest economy, France, has risen by 14.31%.

There are also countries with worse economic conditions, but their stock markets are not at all inferior.

Greece has risen by 37%, Russia by 30%, and even Ireland has risen by 22.7%.

The UK, which has left the eurozone, has become our fellow sufferer, rising by only 1.07% in the past six months.

So this year's slight rise is actually based on the fact that there was no decline last year.

However, we have a piece of data that has won the world, a report provided by EY shows that the number of newly listed companies on A-shares in the first half of this year reached 173.

Data from PwC also shows that the number of IPOs on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in the first half of this year ranked first in the world, and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange ranked second, with the two exchanges monopolizing the top two positions globally.