Zhejiang's securities regulator has imposed one of the clearer recent penalties for influencer‑driven market manipulation, ordering the confiscation and matching fine of RMB 41.62 million and imposing a three‑year market ban on a popular retail investor known by the Xueqiu handle “金浤.” The China Securities Regulatory Commission’s Zhejiang Bureau found that between September 2024 and April 2025 the account’s operator, Jin Yongrong (born 1988, Zhejiang), publicly recommended 32 listed stocks and then executed large reverse sell trades on the same or next trading day, producing RMB 630.6 million in transaction volume and the illicit gains cited above.
The bureau says its case rests on account‑opening records, trading and bank transaction flows, device and chat records, exchange data and witness statements. Investigators concluded that Jin controlled a group of five securities accounts — including accounts in his own name and accounts held by two sisters — and used his substantial online reach to induce followers to trade, then “抢帽子” (literally “hat‑snatching”) by selling into the buying pressure he had helped create.
Jin contested the finding at an administrative hearing. He argued he was an ordinary retail investor who posted trade recaps and commentary rather than stock tips; that his reach outside Xueqiu was limited; that some posts were not public; and that short‑term “T‑trading” and contemporaneous buys as well as alleged investigative flaws undermine the claim of intent. The regulator rejected these defenses, citing platform‑provided readership data (single‑post averages above 1.3 million reads during the period, and account followers of roughly 107,000 by April 2025), timing correlations between posts and trades, and corroborating evidence tying the sister accounts to his control.
Legally the bureau framed the conduct as a breach of China’s Securities Law provisions that prohibit acting to influence prices or volumes through public recommendations followed by contrary trades. It applied customary enforcement methods — calculating illegal gains with a first‑in, first‑out approach, confiscating those gains and levying an equal fine — and invoked rules allowing temporary market entry bans for serious disruptions to trading order. Jin has 60 days to seek administrative review and six months to litigate, but the decision does not stay while he pursues remedies.
The case is emblematic of a sustained regulatory emphasis in China on curbing market volatility driven by social‑media personalities and retail herding. Platforms such as Xueqiu, Taoguba, WeChat and Xiaohongshu have become important distribution channels for stock analysis and trading cues; regulators and exchanges have grown more able to trace correlations between posts and on‑chain trading activity. Enforcement has increasingly targeted the so‑called “抢帽子操纵” pattern — public bullish messaging followed by near‑immediate sell‑offs — which authorities view as particularly corrosive to fair price discovery.
For platforms and brokers the ruling signals higher compliance expectations. Platforms may need to tighten content controls, require clearer labelling of promotional material, and cooperate more closely with exchanges and regulators on data sharing. Brokers face reputational and compliance risks where influential clients use their trading accounts to amplify market signals. For retail investors, the decision could reduce some forms of opportunistic volatility but may also chill informal commentary, as prolific posters reassess legal risk.
The broader market implications are mixed. Stronger enforcement can bolster confidence among institutional investors and reduce manipulation‑driven spikes; yet it also raises the compliance cost of market commentary and could push some activity off mainstream platforms. The decision underscores regulators’ willingness to marry platform analytics with traditional surveillance to police modern forms of market abuse, and suggests further similar actions are likely as authorities seek to tidy the retail end of China’s equity market.
In practical terms the penalty is punitive: Jin must pay the combined RMB 83.25 million (confiscation plus penalty) within 15 days to the state treasury and will be barred from trading or participating in the securities market under his name or aliases for three years. The ruling therefore serves both as sanction and deterrent, closing a chapter in which a prominent online voice turned instruction, influence and trading into a regulatory test case.