Giulia Liu, a retiree in her late 50s, got burned trading stocks last year. She put HK$ 1.6 million into the local market, trading individual shares with a focus on small-caps, and lost 60 per cent of her money when markets dived on the euro-zone crisis.

“One year ago, I was trading heavily. It was my first experience trading stocks,” says Liu. “I was confident, I made a little money, but [in 2011] a lot of it was wiped out.”