A recent survey showed that the country's fund managers remain moderately optimistic on the stock market, though a recent decline dragged valuations to new lows.

The Securities Times polled 20 mutual funds and found that 9 of them expect the Shanghai Composite Index to further drop below the psychologically important 2,000 points level.

Two of the mutual funds believe that the market will decline further but won't go so far as to below 2,000 points.

The Shanghai Index was up 0.57 percent, or 11.63 points, on Monday at 2,059.15 points. It has dropped 6.38 percent year-to-date and 3.45 percent this month.

gaochangxin@chinadaily.com.cn