China woes and declining oil prices continued to wear on global markets today.
Overnight, China halted trading for the second time this week after the markets plummeted 7 percent. The indices closed after 29 minutes of trading.
This morning, the Dow Jones industrial average, Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 opened down.
Worries about China also spread to commodities again. Crude oil was down again nearly 3 percent this morning, to $32.96 a barrel.
China has tried to quell fears of a sell-off and an economic slowdown, but after the People’s Bank of China made another cut to the yuan (the largest since the August devaluation), global markets responded negatively. It’s a big signal to investors that China may not have much confidence in its economy.
In Europe, markets opened to losses as well. The Stoxx Europe 600 slipped 3 percent, and the DAX in Germany fell over 3 percent.
For the fourth day in the row, shoe and retail stocks in the U.S. were hit by the China concerns. Amazon.com Inc. slipped less than a percent in early market trading. Coach Inc., Deckers, DSW Inc., Michael Kors Holdings Ltd. and Wolverine World Wide Inc. opened down at the morning bell.
