Experts believe there isn't much of a risk that the mainland stocks will take a dive after last week's decline.
The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index inched up 0.13 percent to close at 3,067.35 points on Friday, curbing the week's loss to 0.1 percent.
The Shenzhen Component Index fell 0.27 percent to 10,640.42 points on Friday, extending the week's loss to 0.50 percent.
The CSI 300 Index of the biggest companies traded in Shanghai and Shenzhen added 0.38 percent on Friday to close at 3,314.11 points, clawing back into positive territory with a 0.21 percent gain for the week.
The ChiNext Index, which tracks the country's NASDAQ-style board for growth enterprises, shed 0.48 percent on Friday, extending the week's loss to 0.86 percent.
Off all the major indexes, the ChiNext took the most hits last week, falling 0.17 percent on Wednesday, 0.48 percent on Thursday and 0.48 percent on Friday. By comparison, the Shanghai and Shenzhen indexes each fell during two sessions last week.
Daily trading volumes remained sluggish last week. The volume traded on the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges ranged between 422.5 billion yuan on Tuesday and 454.9 billion yuan on Thursday.
Market experts widely believe that mainland stocks will not fall below 3,000 points, which has become a major support level for the market, said Li Jian, the general manager at a Beijing-based asset management institution.
First, the stock prices of highly-weighted stocks, especially those of State-owned enterprises such as PetroChina, remain far from overvalued, Li noted. Second, State-owned funds hold lots of shares, especially in the financial sector, and the government will not allow major indexes to fall arbitrarily.
Wu Guoping, the general manager at Guangzhou-based Yurong Investment Management Co, agreed with Li, noting that most of the risks went out of the market with the plunge that started in the middle of last year.
Analysts from Everbright Securities said that mainland stocks will likely remain range bound in the future. As for the reasons, the analysts cited gaming among funds already in the market, the strengthening wait-and-see attitude of external funds and the lack of investment hotspots in the market.
They said that if there is a clear signal that the U.S. will raise interest rates, the major mainland indexes will rebound to around 3,200 points. They also noted that investment opportunities will increase later in September due to seasonal factors, providing investors with a golden opportunity to buy high-quality stocks.
