How to make sense of China's plummeting stock market

New York

WHILE the eyes of the world have been on the crisis in Greece, China, a country with 123 times the population, has faced financial troubles of its own. A free fall in the Chinese stock market could threaten the prosperity of the world's second-largest economy and have long-term effects of its own.

But the numbers suggest that the stock market collapse - it's down 26 per cent in four weeks - may be less a shocking turn of events and more an inevitable correction in a market that featured many of the classic signs of a financial bubble.