2015–2016 Chinese stock market turbulence

The 2015-2016 Chinese stock market turbulence began with the popping of a stock market bubble on 12 June 2015 and ended in early February 2016. A third of the value of A-shares on the Shanghai Stock Exchange was lost within one month of the event. Major aftershocks occurred around 27 July and 24 August's "Black Monday". By 8–9 July 2015, the Shanghai stock market had fallen 30 percent over three weeks as 1,400 companies, or more than half listed, filed for a trading halt in an attempt to prevent further losses. Values of Chinese stock markets continued to drop despite efforts by the government to reduce the fall. After three stable weeks the Shanghai index fell again by 8.48 percent on 24 August, marking the largest fall since 2007.

At the October 2015 International Monetary Fund (IMF) annual meeting of finance ministers and central bankers from the IMF's 188 member-countries held in Peru, China's slump dominated discussions with participants asking if "China’s economic downturn [would] trigger a new financial crisis".

By the end of December 2015, China's stock market had recovered from the shocks and had outperformed S&P 500 for 2015, though it was still well below the 12 June highs. By the end of 2015, the Shanghai Composite Index was up 12.6 percent. In January 2016, the Chinese stock market experienced a steep sell-off and trading was halted on 4 and 7 January 2016 after the market fell 7%, the latter within 30 minutes of opening. The market meltdown set off a global rout in early 2016.

According to 19 January 2016 articles in the Xinhua News Agency, the official press agency of the People's Republic of China, China reported a 6.9 percent GDP growth rate for 2015 and an "economic volume of over ten trillion U.S. dollars". A Forbes journalist argued that the "stock market crash does not indicate a blowout of the Chinese physical economy." China was shifting from a focus on manufacturing to service industries and while it had slowed, it was still growing by 5%. After this period of turbulence, the Shanghai Composite Index was stable around 3,000 points as of January 2017, 50% less than before the bubble popped.