– This is the script of CNBC's news report for China's CCTV on January 5, Tuesday.
Welcome to CNBC Business Daily, I'm Qian Chen.
The saying goes, as goes January, so goes the year.
That's not exactly encouraging if you believe that after that sell-off we saw these two days.
"It just shows you the start of the year hasn't changed how people feel about the market. They've been worried about China. They've been worried about oil and high yield and the dollar," said Thomas Lee, founder of FundStrat Global Advisors.
"Anything that concerned people at the end of last year continues to bother them now. I think last year it was pretty hard for earnings to survive that strong dollar and drop in oil, and I think the PMIs that came out are just adding to the concerns."
Stocks took a thumping on the first trading day of the year, leaving investors to wonder if 2016 will be the year the bull market gives up.
China's shares took a wild ride Tuesday, darting between gains and losses after a sharp selloff in the previous session, even as other Asia markets recovered.
In Monday's trading session, Chinese equities plunged after feeble manufacturing surveys revived concerns over the country's economic slowdown.
The CSI300 dipped 7 percent in afternoon trade Monday, resulting in trade being suspended for the day.
[FRASER HOWIE Independent Analyst ] "091608 People panic. They want to sell. The Whole point of markets is that they give you a venue to trade. And you are told only 2% a day you are gonna be stopped for the whole day, you are gonna rush to sell. That what happened. 091619 91636 This is the nature of the market. You have either. You have a circuit breaker, and you are the user or you get rid of it and just accept you are gonna have volitility. 091643 "
Deutsche Bank said in a note that the 5 percent/7 percent stop-trading threshold in China is comparatively lower than other markets, adding to volatility and possibly heightening concerns on market liquidity.
In the U.S., if the S&P 500 moves reach 7 and 13 percent, trade is halted for 15 minutes and is then completely stopped when it hits the 20 percent mark in either direction.
Reuters reported that China's securities watchdog, the China Securities Regulatory Commission, said Tuesday that it would continue to hone its circuit-breaker mechanism, but that its use on Monday had helped calm markets and protect investors' interests.
This was at odds with the views of most market commentators, who blamed the circuit breaker for exacerbating panic selling by retail investors.
When we asked analyst Ronald Wan what he would buy, eyeing the market performance for the first two trading days this year... here's what he got to say.
[RONALD WAN Partners Capital International Chief Executive, Investment Banking ] "093712 I think I'll buy the property sectors as I've mentioned, I will look into the infrastucture, I will also look into telecomminication, because there will be a lot of M&A opportunities, also I will buy stocks which will be benefited from two-child policies. This will be sectors which I will be looking at. 093730"
CNBC's Qian Chen, reporting from Singapore.
Follow us on Twitter: @CNBCWorld