ABC News(NEW YORK) — U.S. stock futures plunged further and global indexes tumbled Thursday morning as high-flying tech companies continued getting hit.
Dow Industrial Average Futures were down by about 320.62 points, or 1.3 percent, at 25,278.12 in early trading after opening undramatically in line with yesterday’s close. Later in the morning, the index took a nose dive, adding to losses of more than 3 percent on Wednesday.
The tech-centric NASDAQ was down by 1.7 percent Thursday morning. S&P 500 futures were trading slightly lower at 2,761.88, down less than 1 percent.
The CBOE Volatility Index, widely considered a fear gauge for the market, rose to 24.1 points on Thursday morning, a fresh six-month high.
Shares of fintech company Square plunged 15 percent Thursday on news its CFO Sarah Friar was leaving to become CEO of Nextdoor.
Snapchat also held losses close to 60 percent off from its IPO price, after hitting an all-time low earlier this week.
That followed a research note by media analyst Michael Nathanson, saying the company was “quickly running out of money.”
Shares of Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Netflix and Google, the so-called FAANG stocks, were among the hardest hit Wednesday, shedding billions in market capitalization. Shares were trading close to Wednesday’s close late Thursday morning, although Amazon was down 2.6 percent.
The benchmark Dow index fell 831 points to close at 25,598.74 on Wednesday, wiping out 3.2 percent of its value in the sharpest drop since February.
The decline came amid a widespread selloff on Wall Street, which spilled over into global markets overnight as investors reacted to the “sheer magnitude of the move,” OANDA analyst Stephen Innes wrote in a note to investors.
“Equity markets were pulverized today as investors remain in full out retreat and even the most pessimistic of equity bears are still in shock by the sheer magnitude of the move,” he added. “This meltdown isn’t just a mild case of the sniffles suggesting the latest sneeze from the U.S. equity market could morph into a global markets pandemic.”
Innes, the Singapore-based head of Head of Trading for Asia Pacific with OANDA, attributed the slide to a combination of factors, including the possibility further interest rate hikes and the battle over tariffs between the U.S. and China.
“President Trump’s scathing and ramped-up attack on the Fed has the dollar bulls retreating as even the hint of political interference on monetary policy is unsettling,” Innes said.
Asia stock indexes added to the global market’s pain on Thursday, with benchmarks in Shanghai, Shenzhen and Tokyo all skidding between 4 and 5 percent.
Japan’s benchmark index tumbled about 3.9 percent, while China’s key index fell 4.3 percent. Market indexes in Hong Kong, South Korea, Australia and Southeast Asia also moved lower.
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