Most European stock markets continued to show losses this afternoon following yesterday's dramatic falls, despite signs of a recovery in the US.
Many stock markets hit six-year peaks earlier this year, but these gains have almost been wiped out in the past two days.
Dublin's ISEQ index was down another 1.45% at 9,398 this afternoon; almost €4bn was wiped off the value of Irish shares yesterday after a 3% fall.
London's FTSE dropped another 1.5% to 6,186 after a 2% fall yesterday.
The falls in stock markets yesterday came from concerns about US growth and China's economic strength.
In Shanghai, share prices actually closed up by almost 4% this morning, one day after slumping 8.8% - which was their biggest one-day loss in ten years.
But Tokyo's Nikkei ended down almost 3%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index is down nearly 4% while Australia's benchmark index has shed 3.5%. Indonesian and Philippine stocks are also down.
Major US share indexes rebounded at today’s opening, after the Dow Jones ended down 3.3% yesterday, the worst day on the Street since 2001.
Comments from former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan and rising tension about Iran's nuclear programme added to undermine investor jitters.
Yesterday's plunge was prompted by fears that Chinese authorities would crack down on stock market speculation and concern about the health of the US economy.
