U.S. stocks were under fire on Monday with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling nearly 1,600 points at one point and all three major stock indexes erasing all of 2018’s gains thus far. The declines suffered by the S&P 500 and the Dow were the worst single-day percentage drops since August 2011. Bears have begun to cheer the beginning of the end of the bull market, while optimists are questioning whether the selloff was just a pullback needed to fuel the markets higher once again. There was no specific news or announcement that prompted the fall.
The selloff continued into Tuesday’s Asian session, with all major indexes down at 3:57 p.m. HK/SIN. The ASX 200 fell 3.20 percent, the Shanghai Composite was down 3.38 percent and South Korea’s Kospi was 1.54 percent lower just before the closing bell. Japan’s Nikkei 225 suffered the biggest losses of the day with a 4.73 percent slide, though it was down as much as 6.71 percent earlier in the session. U.S. futures were broadly lower on Tuesday morning, indicating that the selloff hasn’t yet begun to taper.
Cryptocurrencies Take Note
Cryptocurrencies also suffered greatly on Tuesday, with bitcoin falling below $6000, a point not reached since November 2017. The most popular cryptocurrency is down over $10,000 since last month, and is currently trading near $5,914.95 according to Coinbase. Bitcoin is down nearly 65 percent since last month. The cryptocurrency selloff was spurned by reports that regulators are cracking down on crypto exchanges, and by hacks of some exchanges in recent weeks. On Friday, Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase and Citigroup announced their plan to ban cryptocurrency purchases by their credit card clients.
Ripple was down nearly 12 percent on Tuesday, Ethereum was down 16.46 percent.