Economic security

U.S., world stock markets slide as panic in China spreads

Global stock markets fell for a sixth day Thursday as another collapse in China’s ailing share market spread like contagion across the world.

In the United States, stocks fell more than 1 percent in the early minutes of trading. The Dow Jones industrial average, which tracks 30 blue-chip stocks, fell nearly 2 percent or about 300 points before beginning to regain some ground. The Standard & Poor’s 500, a broader measure of the market, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq, were also down significantly.

The fallout from China’s slowing economy is likely to be felt more deeply in Europe than in the U.S., which is less dependent on China’s economy, analysts have said. Still the market turmoil is a reminder of how interconnected the U.S. is to the global economy, they said.