Fortunes turn to dust as winter sets in

A 51-year-old woman investor from Zhejiang province and a keen capital market participant for over a decade, is one of the unlucky ones who saw her fortunes vanish amid the wild market swings.

Jin Jie, who was using an alias as she refused to disclose her real name, said her exposure in the A-share market used to be about 1 million yuan ($161,100). However, the same has now been scaled down to under 500,000 yuan.

"It has been a rock bottom moment for me. Normally, I am a cautious investor and used to have only light positions in the market till June. But when the stock market plunged and the government came out with a series of favorable policies, I increased my exposure and continuously suffered big losses," said Jin.

According to Jin, her major disappointment is that the government did not step in when the market rose to dizzying heights.

"I do not know how to manage my portfolio as I am yet to recover from the market drubbing," she said.

Many individual investors had similar experiences like Jin. They joke that they got through a long-term bear market and successfully escaped before the bull market collapsed, but were buried in the aftermath of the government support measures.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index tumbled to a three-month low as another round of government support measures failed to allay concerns that margin trades will keep unwinding at a record pace.

The index closed at 3,507.19 points on Wednesday, plunging 32.1 percent from the June 12 peak.