Measures and moods as market dives

The government must not intervene in the stock market even as it plumbs new depths, said experts, as the Shanghai Composite Index yesterday came close to plunging to the 3000 mark.

Since April, the government has been trying to stabilize the market and shore up investor confidence by standardizing the conversion of non-tradable shares into tradable ones, slashing stamp tax on stock trading from 0.3 percent to 0.1 percent and asking fund management companies not to sell their holdings.

According to Dong Chen, an analyst with CITIC China Securities, any government move to "save" the market might not be a good idea.