EUROPE PANICS
European markets are diving into the red on Wednesday morning as a cocktail of a market bloodbath in Asia, and another day of sliding oil prices, combine to scare investors into flight.
At the open across the continent, all major stock indexes were lower by around 2% or more, with the FTSE MIB in Italy, and the DAX in Germany leading the losses. Five minutes after the open at 8:00 a.m. GMT (3:00 a.m. ET), Italy's benchmark was trading down by around 2.4% to 18,400 points, while the DAX dropped 2.6%, or roughy 255 points. Here's how the Dax looks:
- Britain's FTSE100 - down 1.9%
- France's CAC40 - down 2.25%
- Spain's IBEX35 - down 2.07%
- Euro Stoxx 50 - down 2.21%
The big driver for the wipeout in Europe was a day of falling share prices across the Asian region. China's benchmark index, the Shanghai Composite finished trading on Wednesday down by roughly 1% to 2976.69, having fallen by as much as 2% during the day.
The Chinese stock slump pushed markets across Asia downwards, with Australia's ASX200 falling 1.26%, and indexes in South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore were also lower.
Asia's biggest loser on the day was the Nikkei 225 in Japan, which dropped 3.71% to its lowest closing level since October 2014.
Oil also continued its crash overnight, and at one point Brent, the European crude benchmark dropped below $28 per barrel. As of 8:20 a.m. GMT (3:20 a.m. ET) Brent is down 2.65% to $28.05, while WTI is down just shy of 3%, and is trading at $28.70.
And just when we thought the markets might be calming down a little.