Despite the sharp falls of recent months — continued with last week’s lurches — A-share prices still look expensive and Chinese retail punters aren’t keen to get back into the market. Appetite among Chinese households for buying A-shares has dropped back to levels last seen in the depths of last summer’s carnage.

In a monthly survey of Chinese consumer sentiment conducted by FT Confidential Research, a research service at the Financial Times, just 19.3 per cent of respondents said last month that now was a good time to buy A-shares, versus 45.5 per cent who said it was a bad time to do so.

FTCR’s index of investors’ appetite for buying A-shares rose to 47.3 in November from August’s record low of 36.4, suggesting that sentiment was improving in the wake of government efforts to stabilise the stock market. (The further the index moves above 50, the greater the appetite for buying A-shares; the further below 50, the lesser the appetite.)