About 70 percent of Chinese investors said they have made profits from this year's bullish stock market, with losers accounting for only 16 percent, according to the latest survey by the China Securities Journal.

    The previous bullish cycle which began in 1996 only brought profits to 47.6 percent of investors, a similar survey run by the newspaper ten years ago revealed.

    The latest survey involving 7,735 small and medium-sized investors came after the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index surged to a record high of 2,447.96 points for the first time in five years on Monday, up 110 percent from 1,163 points on the year's first trading day.

    About 30 percent of the polled said the yields on their stock investment ranged from 20 to 50 percent. Another 14 percent found their stock investment grow by 50 to 95 percent while people who saw their investment double took up around five percent.

    The survey staged in early December shows 14 percent of the polled have broken even. Seven percent said their investment shrank by 10 percent while seven percent reported a loss of 20 to 50 percent.

    This year, only two percent of the polled said they lost more than half of their investment in comparison with the 10.4 percent of ten years ago.

    The survey staged in early December shows investors have become markedly more well-educated this year. About 71 percent of the polled graduated from institutions of higher learning while in 1996, the proportion was only 33.6 percent.

    Investors who graduated from junior high schools only numbered five percent this year in comparison with the 16.4 percent of 1996.

    More than half of the polled have increased their investment in the stock market this year with only 10 percent selling up their stocks.

    About 55 percent attributed the robust stock market to government policies such as the shareholding reform that floated previously non-tradable shares while another 27 percent credited it to the country's brisk economic growth, the appreciating yuan and the massive foreign currency reserves.

    Nearly 14 percent said the market hikes were powered by the good performance of listed companies.