Rising worries spark market sell-off

S&P suffers worst day in two years as global markets are rattled by fears of U.S. slowdown

- STAN CHOE

NEW YORK A scary Monday that started with a plunge abroad reminiscent of 1987's crash swept around the world and pummelled Wall Street with more steep losses, as fears worsened about a slowing US. economy.

The S&P 500 dropped three per cent for its worst day in nearly two years. The Dow Jones industrial average reeled by 1,033 points, or 2.6 per cent, while the Nasdag composite slid 34 per cent as Apple, Nvidia and other Big Tech companies that used to be the stars of the stock market continued to wilt.

The drops were the latest in a global sell-off that began last week. Japan's Nikkei 225 helped begin Monday by plunging 12.4 per cent for its worst day since the Black Monday crash of 1987.

Stock trading in Canada was closed Monday for the Civic Holiday, but the benchmark TSX Composite Index could follow its American counterparts when trading resumes Tuesday morning. While Canada doesnt have the outsized tech giants that drove the US. free fall, many of the biggest Canadian stocks like Royal Bank of Canada, TD Bank and Enbridge fell about 1.7 per cent in trading on American stock exchanges Monday.

It was the first chance for traders in Tokyo to react to Friday's report showing U.S. employers slowed their hiring last month by much more than economists expected. That was the latest piece of data on the U.S. economy to come in weaker than expected, and it's all raised fear that the U.S. Federal Reserve has pressed the brakes on the economy by too much for too long through high interest rates in hopes of stifling inflation.