Wall Street closes down 3.6%, worst plunge since 2011
US stocks closed with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 588 points, recovering from the shocking plunge of 1,000 points at the opening bell on Monday. The S&P 500 was down over 77 points as the trading stopped on the busiest day of the year for investors.
Wall Street suffered one of the steepest falls in the last four years. The volatile session saw the main indexes plunge by 5 percent during the day before correcting and closing down nearly 4 percent. The Dow opened with a stomach-churning 1,000-point plunge following world market panic and the biggest Chinese stock slide since 2007.
What a strange day: Dow went on a roller coaster after a flash crash at the opening of >1000points. Closes 3.6% lower pic.twitter.com/GjOE0F7lhV
— Holger Zschaepitz (@Schuldensuehner) August 24, 2015More than 2,000 stocks hit new 52 week lows on Monday, according to the WSJ Market Data Group. Nasdaq saw Apple fall as low as $92. Giants such as Chevron, General Electric, Berkshire Hathaway and PepsiCo have seen their lowest stock prices on the New York Stock Exchange in a year.
The Dow’s 588 points loss corresponded to a 3.6 percent decline while the S&P 500’s 77 points drop corresponds to a 3.9 percent loss. The Nasdaq Composite ended the day with a 3.8 percent drop, down nearly 180 points.
According to preliminary data from BATS Global Markets, the US equities market operator, nearly 1,300 trading halts were recorded on US exchanges on Monday.
Though the Dow percentage change may not be dramatic, the 588 point drop is the eighth-biggest intraday point decline in the Dow’s history while the 1,000-point decline at the open is the largest intraday point decline in history.
*S&P 500 DROPS 3.9%, ENTERS CORRECTION FOR FIRST TIME SINCE '11
— lemasabachthani (@lemasabachthani) August 24, 2015The US stock chaos followed the crash of the world markets on Monday, after the Shanghai composite closed down 8.5 percent. Asian markets followed China with a broad sell-off. Europe mirrored the downtrend, with the STOXX Europe 600 Index dropping 5.3 percent – its worst percentage loss since 2008.
READ MORE: ‘It’s a bloodbath’: Markets plunge worldwide after biggest slide in Chinese stocks since 2007
"The catalyst for recent declines in stock markets and commodity prices is a downbeat reassessment of the global economic situation due to China’s recent currency devaluation. The Chinese move to peg the Yuan lower caught markets by surprise and has caused many analysts to question whether China could meet its lofty economic growth forecasts," Edward Harrison, banking and finance specialist at Global Macro Advisors, told RT.
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