The financial bloodbath for the Dow means the US stock index has shed more than 1,600 points since Friday amid growing fears of a slowdown of global growth. The Dow remained sensitive yesterday to the Federal Reserve raised rates for the fourth time in 2018. The Fed raised key overnight lending rate rates by 0.25 percent point as expected to a range of 2.25 percent to 2.50 percent. As well as rattling global stocks, the move went against calls from US President Donald Trump, who had urged the central banking system to stop raising rates.
The S&P 500 was also in the red, down 1.58 percent to end the trading day at 2,467.41.
While the Nasdaq Composite dropped by 1.6 percent and closed at 6,528.41.
Meanwhile, shares in Europe were also opening in negative territory today as global repercussions continued to verberate across stocks.
The pan-European STOXX 600 fell over half a percent, continuing its slide towards lows not seen since the end of 2016.
In the UK, the FTSE 100 was down by 24 points, a loss of 0.36 percent at around 10:00 GMT.
At the same time of trade, the Germany DAX had shed 73 points, down 0.69 percent, while the CAC 40 in Paris had dropped by 84 points, or 0.99 percent.
In Asia, the MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan dropped 0.2 percent.
The MSCI All-Country World index, which tracks shares in 47 countries, was down 0.2 percent.
It was set for its worst week since March.
Japan’s Nikkei lost 1.1 percent to close at its lowest since mid-September last year, after giving up 5.6 percent this week.
Chinese blue chips lost 1.4 percent
Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda, said: “Another week draws to a close in the markets and, as we approach the end of the year, it’s looking increasingly unlikely that a late Santa surge is going to save what has been an otherwise horrible quarter.”
Connor Campbell, financial analyst at Spreadex, said: “Santa remained on holiday this Friday, the European markets opening in a Christmassy shade of red following yet another disastrous session for the Dow Jones.
“With the Dow now under 23000 for the first time in 14 months, Europe stood little chance of bucking the bah humbug trend as trading got underway.
“The FTSE, however, was better than most, only dipping 0.1 percent after the bell.
“Admittedly it is barely clinging onto 6700, and it would only take the slightest push for it to tumble back to yesterday’s 28 month nadir, but still, it is something.
“The DAX and CAC were a bit worse off, though, again, not as bad as they could have been considering the Dow’s latest triple-digit nose-dive.
“The German index fell towards 10550 as it dropped 0.4 percent, while the CAC sank below 4700 thanks to a 0.6 percent decline.”