The New York Stock Exchange this month.
Stock markets slumped early Wednesday, extending four straight days of losses amid a stretch of volatility in international trading and routing investors to the refuge of government bonds.
The Dow Jones industrial average plummeted more than 300 points, to 15,495, within the first 10 minutes of trading, but has since stuttered upward to about a 150-point drop.
Within half an hour of trading, the Dow had shifted more than 600 points.Several other major indexes were also down about 1 percent in early trading, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 dropping 14 points, to about 1,860, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq dropping 21 points, to about 4,200.
Stocks lately have suffered from a period of panicking markets and rocky sell-offs, much of it tied to growing worries over weakening economies in Europe and Asia. Federal Reserve officials have said that a loss of momentum in global growth could hurt American exports and the broader economy, and some investors have begun looking for the exits.
The global slowdown helped demand for oil continue its downward slide, with prices for a barrel of the benchmark grade settling in around four-year lows. Also weighing on the markets Wednesday was a big drop in retail sales, which fell 0.3 percent last month, far more than analysts had expected.
The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility index, a “fear gauge” of investor apprehension, climbed to one of its highest points since late 2011. Nervous investors helped drive yields on 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds, which started the year near 3 percent, to below 2 percent for the first time in 16 months.
Stock markets in France, Italy and Greece tumbled in the midst of critically low inflation in Europe, while investors clamoring for safety pushed German government bonds, believed to be safer than stocks, to record-high yields.
The unprecedented spread of the Ebola virus has contributed to investor uncertainty, leading to sell-offs of stocks like cruise companies and airlines.
The Dow has fallen 2.5 percent, nearly 400 points, since the beginning of the year. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 are still in positive territory.