Markets Around The World Are Selling

Britain's FTSE 100 is down 0.4%.

France's CAC 40 is down 0.5%.

Germany's DAX is down 1.2%.

Spain's IBEX is down 0.8%.

Italy's FTSE MIB is down 1.0%.

The culprit for today's sell-off seems to be China where new numbers suggest the world's second largest economy is decelerating more dramatically than expected.

China's flash manufacturing PMI slipped to a seven-month low of 48.3 in February, which was significantly worse than the 49.5 expected by economists.

Japan's Nikkei closed down 2.1%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng closed down 1.1%. US futures are in the red.

"February's flash reading of the HSBC China Manufacturing PMI moderated further as new orders and production contracted, reflecting the renewed destocking activities," said HSBC's Hongbin Qu. "The building-up of disinflationary pressures implies that the underlying momentum for manufacturing growth could be weakening. We believe Beijing policy makers should and can fine-tune policy to keep growth at a steady pace in the coming year."

And it wasn't just China.

Flash PMI numbers out of the eurozone also missed expectations as strength in Germany was largely offset by weakness in France.