Few stock markets this year have seen a greater reversal of fortune than China's

Today's fall is the latest evidence that shares are headed south. "Sentiment is very bad," says Nicholas Yeo, a fund manager at Aberdeen Asset Management in Hong Kong.

China investors rue plunging stocks

"If I can make my money back from the market this time, I promised my wife that I will stay very far away from share trading," said Gu Zichang, a woebegone looking man in his 50s, as the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index fell for the eighth straight session.

"My wife keeps scolding me and I can understand how she feels because I'm also depressed," he said.

Why is this happening?" said a retired schoolteacher, who like some media-shy Chinese would give only her surname, Zhong. "I expected there to be a technical rebound, based on my past experience, so I used some money I'd saved for traveling to buy stocks last Friday. Now I'm trapped," she said.

"I wish I'd just stayed away," she said.

So far, it's hard to see any bottom to this market. I don't see any signs of a rebound,"