It was a blockbuster week for Chinese equities. An out-and-out barnburner.

On Friday, mainland shares built on stimulus-inspired gains to close the week more than 15% higher.

The CSI 300 is up 17% from the September 13 lows. The beleaguered blue-chip gauge, which was on track for an unprecedented fourth annual decline, logged 4% or better gains during three separate sessions this week.

As the figure shows, this was the best weekly performance for the index since 2008. It’s now higher for 2024 to the tune of 9%.

Pan Gongsheng delivered on promises to cut banks’ reserve requirements and the seven-day reverse repo rate (the de facto policy rate). Reductions to both were announced on Friday.

During the prior session, local shares were bolstered by fiscal “big bang” rhetoric out of the Politburo, which made any number of implicit promises in a meeting readout greeted by markets as nothing short of manna from heaven. If you ask me, the path of the totalitarian state leads inescapably to hell, but investors are for now willing to give Xi Jinping the benefit of the doubt. (Because when has that ever gone awry?)

Do note: Part of the PBoC’s easing package entailed making CNY800 billion in liquidity available to brokers, funds and insurance companies for the express purpose of buying Chinese stocks. I don’t know if that program’s “live” yet, but you’d be naive not to suspect state-buying in this week’s rally. Even if it wasn’t state-buying, some of the bonanza was investors trying to front-run the state. Either way, it’s not real, organic demand.

But gains are gains. At least until they aren’t. The figure below illustrates what kind of month it’s been for H-shares.

That’s as close to a 90-degree angle rally as you’re ever going to see from a major global benchmark.

I think — I hope — readers will understand and forgive my skepticism. Even if I believed the Party was capable of rescuing the Chinese property market overnight (and I surely don’t believe that) and even if I were inclined to optimism about a decidedly pessimistic Chinese consumer (and I’m not so inclined), blue-chip equity benchmarks aren’t generally supposed to rally 15% or more in a week.

In a testament to the cartoonish character of the frenzy, The Shanghai Stock Exchange couldn’t handle the volume on Friday. It broke — literally — for a whole hour. As Hao Hong, a pseudo-famous China strategist, put it on social media, “The trading system is simply overwhelmed [by the] huge stampede of stock bulls.”

Hao wasn’t done. “The raging bull is sucking in money from all directions,” he went on, waxing hysteric. “The Chinese market is absolutely on fire!”