NEW YORK — U. S. stocks plunged Monday with the Dow Jones opening down 931 points following a big drop in Chinese stocks.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 1,000 points in early trading.
The Dow was 783 points, or 4.8 percent, lower as of 9:40 a.m. Eastern time.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index dropped 87 points, or 4.5 percent, to 1,882.
The Nasdaq composite fell 247 points, or 5.1 percent, to 4,465 points.
Oil prices, commodities and the currencies of many developing countries also tumbled on concerns that a sharp slowdown in China might hurt economic growth around the globe.
The Shanghai index suffered its biggest percentage decline since February 2007, with many China-listed companies hitting their 10 percent downside limits.
The benchmark has lost all of its gains for 2015, though it is still more than 40 percent above its level a year ago.
The sell-off intensified as European markets opened, where Britain’s FTSE 100 down 4.4 percent, Germany’s DAX 4.8 percent and the CAC 40 of France 5.1 percent. Dow futures were down over 4 percent while the S&P futures were 3.6 percent lower.
Underlying the gloom is the growing conviction that policymakers and regulators may lack the means to staunch the losses in China. The country is facing a slowdown in economic growth, the banking system is short of liquidity and investors are pulling money out of the country, experts note.
“There is a lot of fear in the markets,” said Bernard Aw, market strategist at IG.
China’s dimming outlook is drawing calls for more economic stimulus from Beijing, though earlier government efforts to stop the hemorrhage appear to have done little to stabilize markets.
