The PRC stock market tanked again earlier in the week. It’s a broader drop than just a fall in the PRC’s benchmark Shanghai Composite Index, though.

China’s outstanding margin loans—money investors borrow to buy stocks—declined for 16 consecutive sessions to Jan 22, the longest losing streak on record, with 209 billion yuan ($32 billion) worth of leveraged bets unwound during the period.

“Volume is getting very thin, as there are hardly any fresh inflows, and the process of deleveraging is continuing,” said Chang Chengwei, analyst at brokerage Hengtai Futures [a PRC-based financial investments player].

Fox Business lays much of this drop off to continued low (and perhaps lowering) oil prices. It’s not just oil, though. All those erstwhile investors have had their faces rubbed in the fact that it’s not (if it ever was) a price-sensitive market; it’s a government-sensitive market. And that it never had any contact with the underlying economy; it is a purely speculation play.