Dow Jones drops almost 500 points after major stock market declines in Europe & Asia
Main US equities crashed after the opening bell on Wall Street. American stocks joined a global selloff that hit stock markets in Europe and Asia on Tuesday.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged more than 450 points in early trading. The S&P 500 fell almost 60 points (over 2 percent), and Nasdaq was the biggest loser plunging 185 points, or 2.48 percent.
"There are a number of underlying risk factors in the markets right now, be it US interest rates, Brexit, Italian debt, trade wars or emerging markets," Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at online forex broker Oanda, said in a note, quoted by Reuters.
"These are all destabilizing factors and sentiment may finally be caving under the weight of it all."
Shares in Caterpillar fell nine percent despite beating third-quarter earnings and revenue estimates. 3M Co. plunged 6.8 percent after third-quarter profits missed expectations and the company cut its full-year earnings forecast.
The US stock decline was preceded by a sharp sell-off in Asia, where China’s Shanghai Composite declined 2.26 percent and Japan’s Nikkei plunged 2.67 percent. In Europe, British, German, and French markets all sank one to two percent. In Russia, the RTS dollar index was losing 0.46 percent, while the ruble-denominated MOEX was trading flat.
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