It does not take much to knock confidence in the Chinese stock market these days. Yesterday it was a bearish report from Société Générale cutting its 2012 profits growth forecast for greater China to zero, writes Stefan Wagstyl.

The Shanghai Composite index fell 2.6 per cent, its largest daily fall since November, as investors added profit concerns to other worries about the coming slowdown in the Chinese economy. Right on cue, Jiangxi Copper, the country’s biggest producer, posted an 18 per cent drop in net profits, which took 5.5 per cent off its shares.

SocGen said that Chinese industrial profits (according to official government data) proved “surprisingly weak” for January and February, with a 5.2 per cent decline, compared with the same months in 2011. Profits at state-owned enterprises dropped 10.9 per cent.