CHINA CUTS RATES

After market chaos in the last two days, with the Shanghai Composite tumbling to wipe out all of its massive rally this year, the People's Bank of China is intervening and cutting rates.

China's banking reserve requirement ratio (RRR) has been cut by 0.5 percentage points. That leaves it at 18%, down from 18.5%

It's also cut the one year lending rate by 0.25 percentage points (from 4.85% to 4.6%) and the one year deposit rate by 0.25 percentage points (from 2% to 1.75%).

Some analysts had expected a rate cut over the weekend, and suggested that disappointment over the lack of one was part of the reason for the collapse in Chinese stocks on "Black Monday" - the biggest single-day slump since 2007.

The justification can be found here (in Chinese) on the PBoC website.

European equities are loving the move. The Dax index of German stocks, which was already up for the day, shot back above 10,000 and is now up 4.37%.

Here's how that looks:

More on this story as it comes.