“$5 trillion was wiped out from global stocks this week.”

After yesterday’s violent last hour plunge in US stocks, which also sent the VIX surging back to the mid-30s, the overnight session was somewhat muted, with European stocks falling further on Friday morning, but at a slower pace than the sharp sell offs in Asia and New York.

Europe’s 600 Index, down -1% as of this moment and back to session lows after a modest rebound earlier, was set for its worst week since 2016 as banks and financial-services stocks led most industry sectors lower. The drop, however, was relatively modest and followed a sheer plunge in Asia, where stocks tumbled across the region, wiping out most of their gains from the previous two sessions. The Shanghai Composite recouped some gains to close down “only” 4.1% – in what has now been a two-week selloff without the Chinese National Team making an appearance and buying stocks – the Hang Seng was down 3.1% with losses across all sectors. Tokyo’s Topix closed down 1.9 per cent.

The renewed slide followed Thursday’s drop in the S&P 500, which pushed the index to a 10 per cent decline from its January high – officially, a correction – stirred renewed concerns over the future of the long bull market that followed the 2008 financial crisis, and whether the selloff that was catalyzed by systematic quant funds would spill over to retail investors. And, as we highlighted overnight, that’s precisely what happened following the single biggest weekly outflow from equity funds on record.

And while we look forward to today’s session to see if the retail liquidation continues, S&P 500 futures little changed, after earlier rising as much as 0.9%, while Dow contracts reverse advance to slide 0.3%, even as Congress passed a delayed budget deal, after the government was briefly shut down.

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