Global market sell-off gathers pace after US slide

Fears over aggressive rate hikes

Asian and European stockmarkets have dropped at the start of the week, after the US suffered its worst-trading day in two years on Friday.

The Dow Jones was the worst-affected US index last week, slumping 2.5% on Friday to record its worst one-day performance since June 2016.  Over the week, the Dow Jones had lost 4.1% while the S&P 500 was down 3.9% and the Nasdaq fell 3.5%. This was the worst weekly-performance for the S&P 500 in two years.  US equity markets have been in a euphoric state since President Donald Trump passed his historic Tax Cuts and Jobs Act reform, which saw corporation tax cut from 35% to 21%. This pushed the S&P 500 up 5.9%, marking its best start to the year since 1987, prior to the recent pull-bac...