China's Stock Market Turmoil Continues as Shares Lose Value

China's Shanghai Stock Exchange has led the country's shares into a bear market on Friday, falling by over 3 percent to yesterday's closing value.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The Shanghai Composite Index fell 3.52 percent to 2887.91 points at 2:50 p.m. local time (06:50 GMT) before slightly recovering to 2901.78 points by its 3 o'clock closing call, trading data showed.

The Friday SSE sell-off has continued the bourse's decline from the recent December high, now falling 20 percent to its December 22 value. Other Chinese stock exchanges mirrored the trend, with the Hang Seng declining over 4 percent since January 8, and Shenzhen Stock Exchange Component Index falling by over 8 percent in the same period. On Friday, Hang Seng fell 1.4 percent, while SZSE fell 3.35 percent.

China's stock exchanges previously went through a bear market on Wednesday, after early 2016 turmoil across Asian markets sparked by the People's Bank of China (PBC) decision to devalue the yuan by over 1.5 percent against the US dollar within the first week of January. The move was the biggest devaluation of China's currency since August 2015.

The yuan's controlled exchange rate has since stabilized, despite going through a minor devaluation on Thursday.

Markets remain focused on yuan fluctuations, as the Chinese currency has lost almost 6 percent of its value against the dollar since August 2015. On January 4, the PBC injected 130 billion yuan ($19.9 billion) into China's financial system in an ongoing attempt to buoy the currency.