Within the final 20 minutes of trade on Friday, Chinese markets roared back from the day's low, turning a 2.3 per cent loss to a 1.1 per cent loss in the blink of an eye, writes Peter Wells. Nor is it the first time this week we've seen some late turnarounds and wild moves.

The Shenzhen Composite closed 0.8 per cent lower at 2,100.6 and the CSI 300 ended flat at 3,816.7, and all the indices exhibited the same pattern. But that's probably par for the course in a market that's being propped up by the government.

But the month as a whole seems to have proven a little too much for China's plunge protection team. The Shanghai Composite declined 14.3 per cent and Shenzhen stocks gave up 14.4 per cent, both their worst performances since August 2009.