Asian markets plunge after record Wall Street losses on the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average

Stock markets in Asia and the Pacific region plunged on Tuesday morning as the global equity rout continued for a third day.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 suffered a huge 4.73 per cent loss in Tuesday trading, its worst points fall since 1990, according to London Capital Group, after both the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered their biggest single-day points drops in history.

In a foreboding sign for the mining-heavy FTSE 100, the Australian Stock Exchange’s ASX 200 index saw a 3.3 per cent fall, driven by big falls in energy and industrials stocks.

Read more: Does the sell-off signal the start of a bear market?

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng composite index saw a mirror-image 4.77 per cent loss, with only six of its nearly 500 constituent companies in the black.

The Shanghai Stock Exchange composite index also saw a sharp 3.4 per cent loss, after remaining immune on Monday. Shenzhen’s 4.44 per cent loss continued its earlier big losses.

Markets were spooked on Friday by signs of a sharp rise in inflationary pressure in the US, prompting fears the Federal Reserve will tighten monetary policy faster than expected.

Read more: The dollar is climbing fast after US jobs beat expectations last month

While bond yields across the world seem to have retreated after spiking to multi-year highs at the end of last week, turmoil continued on equity markets after an extended period in which prices only seemed to move in one direction.

Investors have jumped on the data as the trigger for a correction in equity markets.

Read more: Rise of passive investment could see stock markets tumble even further