Hundreds of billions wiped off world’s financial markets today, as Chinese rout sends shares tumbling in Europe, Asia and the US
China has been a major contributor to economic growth and low global inflation for more than two decades.
But tonight, investors around the globe are catching their breath after one of the worst day’s trading in many years. They’re now pondering whether today marks the start of a new and alarming phase of the crisis which began some eight years ago.
Mohamed El-Erian, former CEO of Pimco, believes today’s rout has sunk any prospect of US interest rates being raised next month. But he doesn’t believe we’re heading into a major crisis.
El-Erian told Bloomberg TV tonight:
“I’m not a buyer that this is the crisis of all crises.
Yes, this is a very unpleasant repricing, very unpleasant. And it’s going to go quite deep, but it’s not going to derail the economy in a major way.”
And while today’s losses are sizeable, they’re not among the worst losses in market history. For all the talk of Black Monday in China,and gloomy photos to match, this was more of a correction in Western markets. One to remember for years to come, though.
In a few hours, Asian markets will reopen; investors could drive a recovery, or send markets deeper into the red. We’ll have a new liveblog up and running to cover the action.
In the meantime, here’s a short summary:
- The US stock market has suffered its biggest sell-off in four years.The Dow Jones ended the day down 588 points, having shed more than 1,000 points in early trading.
- The S&P 500 and Nasdaq are both in correction territory tonight, down 10% on their recent peaks.
- In London, almost £74bn was wiped off the value of the FTSE 100 index, in a rout led by mining giants.
- European stock markets suffered their worst days trading since 2011.
- The selloff began in Asia 19 hours ago, where Australia’s market suffered its biggest fall since 2009 and Japan’s Nikkei slumped over 4%.
- But China was the worst hit, with the Shanghai composite index dropping 8,5% in the biggest selloff since 2007.
- These photos show how the mayhem unfolded