According to a state-owned newspaper, the China Securities Regulatory Commission is planning to set up joint information gateways between itself and mainland China's two main exchanges.

These are the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges and there will also be a communication channel between them, the regulator and China's derivatives exchange, the China Financial Futures Exchange in Shanghai.

Last month, sources at Reuters reported that Xiao Gang, the head of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, had tendered his resignation after failing to prop up the equities market in recent months, most importantly with a 'circuit-breaker' mechanism of his own devising which failed spectacularly this month. This latest initiative could be a hasty face-saving announcement for the regulator.

Xiao's various interventions in the Shanghai market have come to nothing. The point of the 'circuit-breaker' was to shut the market down automatically if it dropped at too fast a rate, which it did, thanks to market manipulation if the regulator is to be believed. Alan Lok of the CFA Institute told WealthBriefing, our sister site, one day later: "The circuit breaker system could be a boon or a bane. While it could serve as a market safeguard, it is also disruptive to trading activity and can slow down the price discovery process. Therefore, it should only be seen as the last resort to stabilise markets - to minimise the price (side effect) to be paid during market interventions. The circuit breaker mechanism needs to be implemented in a harmonised fashion across exchanges to provide investors with similar expectations and safeguards on whichever venue they trade."