Chinese stocks staged mixed performance Wednesday with small-cap firms and recently listed stocks leading the gain.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index went down 0.29 percent to close at 3,293.96 points while the Shenzhen Component Index closed 0.52 percent higher at 10,911.33 points.

Combined turnover on the two bourses shrank to 393.4 yuan (about 59.5 billion U.S. dollars) from 482.7 billion yuan the previous trading day.

The Shanghai index opened below 3,300 points, hitting a three-month low. Led by slump in financial shares, the index slipped more than 1 percent before recovering in afternoon trading.

Large-cap companies suffered the most, with banking and insurance companies falling across the board.

Ping An Insurance, for example, saw its shares down 2.53 percent.

The SSE 50 Index, which tracks 50 stocks on the Shanghai Stock Exchange with large market capitalization and high liquidity, fell 1.19 percent.

Bucking the trend, recently-listed companies on the exchanges mostly gained.

Companies with small capitalization, especially those in the information service and electronics industries, also saw their shares jump.

The ChiNext Index, which tracks China's NASDAQ-style board of growth enterprises, gained 1.46 percent to close at 1,784.31 points.