The Chinese stock market has been shaken by dramatic ups and downs in the first seven weeks of the year, with more volatility that it experienced in all of 2017. What's behind all the changes, and will they persist after the holidays? Mi Jiayi reports.  

Mainland stocks had a good opening to the year with a three-week rise that had them up six percent. But that gain soon turned into losses - the Shanghai Composite began diving on January 24 and fell ten percent along with the global stock out of the next two weeks. One analyst says there were three major reasons behind the big adjustment in mainland stocks, and that in fact, the influence of US stock volatility has the weakest impact of all.

CAI JUNYI, CHIEF ANALYST SHANGHAI SECURITIES "We think that profit-taking was 30 percent of the reason for the fall, and tougher government regulations were responsible for another 50 percent. The global market rout only contributed 20 percent to the mainland market fluctuations. As far as profit-taking is concerned, you can see that now the indexes monitoring the big blue chips are down to around the same level as that of September or October, indicating large-scale profit-taking in the market."

But has the market taken on board all this thinking? Will we see a continued decline here? One analyst says the fact that Beijing is to hold the two sessions legislative meetings following the Spring Festival holidays will be good news for the market. But he warns of the need to continue to be alert to external influences.

SHAO YU, CHIEF ECONOMIST ORIENT SECURITIES "Since the Chinese markets will not trade for a long time during the holidays, just so things don't change in overseas markets investors will have a good opportunity to buy good stocks at relatively low prices after the holidays. But if there are changes in economic developments and liquidity situations, then the market will turn unpredictable again."

The newly appoint Fed chair Jerome Powell hinted that the US will continue with its interest rate hikes. An important factor in the decision about US interest rates will be changes in the US consumer price index, and the latest figures for that are just coming out.