U.S. Stocks Tumble Again After More Chinese Turmoil

Chinese stock markets packed enough drama for a few months into a spectacularly condensed half-hour collapse on Thursday. And as they did earlier this week, U.S. stocks also fell.

China's CSI 300 stock index plummeted 5 percent in the first 10 minutes of trading. Under the country’s new circuit breaker rules, which are intended to minimize stock market declines, a 5 percent decline triggered a 15-minute trading half. After this brief break, stocks dropped another 2 percent in five minutes -- automatically closing the market 30 minutes after it had opened, and after just 15 minutes of trading had been completed.

The S&P 500 fell 2.4 percent. London's FTSE 100 was down just under 2 percent, and the German Dax index was off 2.3 percent. Japan's Nikkei index ended the day down 2.3 percent.

Shortly after U.S. stocks opened almost 2 percent down, the Chinese securities regulator announced that the circuit breaker policies would be discarded because there had been too many steep losses. These rules were counterproductive because they pushed investors to sell as soon as possible so they wouldn't be stuck with losses when the market closed.