Ting Hai effect


The Ting Hai effect, also known as the Adam Cheng effect, is a stock market 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.

Origin

In late 1992, the television series The Greed of Man was aired on TVB in Hong Kong. The drama centred 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, 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. 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%.

Occurrences

Initially, the Ting Hai effect occurred whenever The Greed of Man or its loose sequel, Divine Retribution, 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.

1990s

2000s

2010s

  • 21 May 2012: Master of Play made its debut on TVB. The Hang Seng Index fell by 10%.
  • 4 April 2013: Saving General Yang was released in Beijing. The Hang Seng Index fell by 610 points on the following day of the premiere.
  • 20 April 2015: The Greed of Man was rerun on TVB, followed shortly by a rerun of Divine Retribution on ATV. The Hang Seng Index fell by 558.19 points on the first day of rerun.

2020s

  • 13 January 2020: Ever Night: Season 2 was released for streaming on Tencent Video. The Hang Seng Index kept falling until March.
  • 5 October 2022: Divine Retribution was released for streaming on Disney+. The Hang Seng Index kept falling.
  • 25 October 2022: Behind Silk Curtains to begin rerunning at TVB at midnight of 26 Oct. The Hang Seng Index fell 1,030 points at market close of 25 Oct.

Exceptions

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, The Driving Power, and The Conqueror's Story.

Legacy

The Ting Hai effect has led to Adam Cheng attracting much attention from the press. Whenever a new film or television series starring Cheng is about to be broadcast, some stockbrokers and investors in Hong Kong anticipate a drop in the market. Cheng himself does not believe that he is the cause of the stock prices falling, but has come to terms with the phenomenon.
While some investors have argued that the effect is no more than a series of coincidences and amounts to nothing more than a self-fulfilling prophecy, the phenomenon is regarded by some as more than coincidental. The French bank Crédit Lyonnais wrote a report on it.