European and Asian stocks extended a slide on Wall Street today as US President Donald Trump pressed ahead with whopping 104% tariffs on Chinese goods, pummelling oil prices to four-year lows as global recession fears gripped financial markets.
London's FTSE index clsoed 2.9% lower this evening, while the Paris CAC lost 3.3% and the Frankfurt DAX dropped by 3%.
Dublin's ISEQ index was also seeing losses and closed 2.7% lower with AIB, Bank of Ireland and Cairn Homes seeing big losses.
But Wall Street's main indexes inched higher this evening as investors lapped up cheaper technology stocks in a choppy session that remained centered on tariff moves as China retaliated with more levies on US goods.
Most megacap and growth stocks rose, with Apple and Nvidia adding nearly 2.5% each and Microsoftup 1.2%. The tech sector was up 1.5%.
Meanwhile, Tokyo's Nikkei index closed with losses of 3.9% after rallying 6% yesterday on hopes that Tokyo may get some trade deal with the US.
Overnight, Washington confirmed 104% duties on imports from China would take effect after midnight.
The shifting headlines on tariffs and the spectre of a prolonged trade war between the world's two biggest economies sparked sharp volatility in financial markets.
The S&P 500 was swept up in one of the biggest reversals in at least the last 50 years, with the benchmark index losing 4.2 percentage points from a positive start to a negative finish.
The index has lost $5.8 trillion in stock market value, the deepest four-day loss since it was created in the 1950s.
President Trump last night said China was manipulating currency to protect against tariffs, but he thought China would make a deal at some point.
"US and China are stuck in an unprecedented, and expensive, game of chicken, and it seems that both sides are unwilling to back down," said Ting Lu, chief China economist at Nomura.
"Given the extraordinarily fluid situation, it is impossible to reasonably estimate the impact of the ongoing US-China trade war on China's economy," he added.
Analysts at JPMorgan believed the rapid escalation with US tariffs on China were disruptive enough to push the global economy into recession.
Other stock markets in Asia were also deep in the red. Taiwanese stocks also fell 1.7% even though the government activated a $15 billion stabilisation fund.
In currency markets, safe-haven currencies like the yen and Swiss franc found some more love, with the dollar skidding 0.6% to 145.36 yen and down 0.5% to 0.8430 Swiss franc.
The kiwi rose 0.3% to $0.5550 after the Reserve Bank of New Zealand cut interest rates by 25 bps to 3.5%, although it cautioned about downside risks to the local economy from global trade barriers.
