Beijing on Sunday slashed by half a key levy on stock trades, the latest in a series of increasingly desperate measures aimed at engineering a rebound in local shares, among the world’s worst performers in 2023.

The decision was expected, if not guaranteed. Media reports suggested officials were studying proposals for a cut earlier this month. It’s the first reduction since the financial crisis, and it’s effective immediately.

Last week, China’s securities regulator instructed pension funds, large banks and insurers to buy stocks. The next day, Beijing relaxed some home-buying restrictions in yet another piecemeal attempt to bolster sentiment.

Mainland shares are on track for a third straight annual decline. Hong Kong benchmarks continue to struggle.

Beijing promised in July to “boost investor confidence,” but it’s not going well. Rallies are sparse and short-lived, and overseas investors sold the most Mainland shares on record this month.

“We believe more decisive, forceful and comprehensive plans to address the weak links in the economy will be required to ring-fence the potential contagion risk, stabilize market growth expectatios and allow the equity market to trade closer to its equilibrium fair value,” Goldman analysts led by Kinger Lau said last week, cutting their EPS outlook for Chinese shares and lowering their MSCI China price target.

“In a more steady-state, normalized environment, we believe Chinese equities could trade close to 11x,” Goldman went on, cautioning that “in a scenario where effective policy circuit-breakers are absent, the likelihood of a self-reinforcing downward spiral should theoretically increase, hence pressuring the fair market price from an expected value standpoint.”

The decision to cut the stamp duty could conceivably spark a rally, but the same caveat applies: China needs big-ticket fiscal measures to avoid a balance sheet recession.

At the end of the day, reducing the cost of stock trading is just another half-measure, and if it doesn’t succeed in inaugurating a durable rally, all it’s going to do is make hedge funds and brokerages more profitable. Not exactly “common prosperity.”