Asian shares skidded Thursday after another torrent of selling on Wall Street sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeting more than 600 points, erasing its gains for the year.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 index sank sharply on the open. By early afternoon it was down 3.3 per cent at 21,369.48. The Shanghai Composite index slipped 1.4 per cent to 2,566.21.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index skidded 1.8 per cent to 24,794.60, reports AP.
Charts for the entire region were awash in red, but the declines were mostly in the 2.0 per cent to 3.0 per cent range.
Elsewhere in Asia, South Korea’s Kospi fell 2 per cent to 2,053.75 and the S&P ASX/200 dropped 2.2 per cent to 5,701.80. India’s Sensex fell 0.7 per cent to 33,781.56.
In Hong Kong, airline Cathay Pacific’s shares dropped as much as 6.5 per cent after it said it had discovered a data breach affecting 9.4 million passengers.
Some market observers appeared to be taking the latest volatility in stride.
The Nasdaq composite lost 4.4 per cent on Wednesday to 7,108.40. The S&P 500 fell 3.1 per cent to 2,656.10 and the Dow tumbled 2.4 per cent to 24,583.42.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks gave up 3.8 per cent to 1,468.70 and is down 4.4 per cent for the year.
Bond prices rose, sending the yield on the 10-year Treasury note down to 3.12 per cent from 3.16 per cent late Tuesday. The slide in bond yields came as traders sought out lower-risk assets.
Benchmark US crude lost 50 cents to $66.34 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On Wednesday it edged up 0.6 per cent to settle at $66.82 a barrel in New York.
Brent crude, used to price international oils, declined 42 cents to $75.75 a barrel.
The dollar weakened to 112.06 yen from 112.23 yen. The euro rose to $1.1408 from $1.1393.