AKIPRESS.COM - Chinese stock markets took a wild ride on Wednesday, tumbling and soaring in a session that made little sense other than to highlight that investors have almost no faith in a month-long government effort to stabilize them.

The Shanghai and Shenzhen markets fell 3 percent in morning trade, taking their losses to more than 8 percent since investors stampeded without warning on Tuesday, reports Reuters.

But state-backed buyers later rushed in, enabling stocks to finish the day more than 1 percent higher. 

It is a pattern that has been repeated several times since Beijing's "national team", a coalition of state-backed financial institutions and regulators, went into action early last month with instructions to halt a crash in share prices.

Investors say China's stock markets - which were never for the faint of heart - have become dysfunctional since the government's massive and unprecedented rescue effort.

Prices move sharply on speculation about the national team's activities as investors focus on making quick trading profits by pre-empting its next move.

Long-term investors are staying well to the sidelines, moving their cash into bonds and the money market, as roller-coaster markets and a gloomy stream of economic news heighten their anxiety over the world's second-largest economy.

"We advise strapping in for a bumpy ride," said Tim Condon, head of Asia research for ING Bank in Singapore.

The Commerce Ministry added to that anxiety on Wednesday, saying exports could continue falling in coming months, after an 8.3 percent plunge in July, their biggest drop in four months.

The economy is already under threat of deflation and policymakers are struggling to revive bricks-and-mortar investment. Beijing's official growth target is 7 percent for this year, but some economists estimate current levels are closer to half that.

Combined exports and imports for the first seven months of 2015 fell 7.2 percent from the same period last year, compared with Beijing's full-year target of 6 percent growth.

"The possibility of exports to see year-on-year decline in some months could not be ruled out. But we will still see export growth for the whole year," Commerce Ministry spokesman Shen Danyang told a regular monthly briefing.

"For the whole year, the foreign trade will face more severe situation than we expected."

Only last month, the ministry predicted exports would improve in the second half of this year from the first half.