Hong Kong’s penny stock enigma remains unsolved

People walk past an electronic board showing Hong Kong share index outside a local bank in Hong Kong, Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2018. Asian stocks sank Wednesday after Wall Street declined on losses for tech and health care companies.

Two years after Hong Kong’s securities regulator vowed to nip irregularities in the bud, flash crashes are still plaguing the world’s fourth-largest stock market.

This year’s wave rivals the notorious “Enigma Network” that prompted the last bout of regulatory hand-wringing in 2017. In mid-January, Chinese real estate developer Jiayuan International Group Ltd plunged without warning, triggering a US$4.8bil selloff in small-cap stocks.