Like a weak patient recovering from a long illness, the Chinese stock market, after an encouraging spurt in the past several months, is suffering from a relapse.

Although the market's unstable condition shouldn't have surprised anyone, the relapse apparently has disheartened the team of stock analysts and the army of investors who found their earlier bullish prognosis shattered by the latest price reverse.

Indeed, the government's renewed efforts to clamp down on the property market that once again was showing signs of overheating wrecked the nerve of many investors, sending them into a stampede to dump their holdings while there was still profit to be made. Back in the minds of many analysts and investors is the gnawing worry that the central bank is moving to tighten credit to ease inflationary pressure.