Shares in disarray over China crisis

By BBC News

Wall Street shares have opened sharply higher, with the Dow Jones nearly 2% up, after losing ground on Tuesday.

At the same time, European stock markets lost ground as fears persist of a China-led economic downturn.
London's FTSE 100 was 1.4% lower in late afternoon trade, with markets in Paris and Frankfurt down by 1.3% and 1.2% respectively.
Experts expect more market volatility until the Federal Reserve meets in September to set US interest rates.
"Until we get September out of the way, I think markets will continue to be choppy," said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets.

"These are the sorts of swings that we last saw in 2008," he added.
With the wild movements in global markets, Mr Hewson said he did not expect a rate rise out of the US next month, in part because of the central bank's mandate to maintain financial stability.
"I think they would be absolutely bonkers to raise rates now," he said.

Media caption What can the past tell us about whether it is worth hanging onto stocks during storms like Black Monday?

China's economic slowdown

282%

China's debt to GDP ratio

$28 trillion

Debt has quadrupled since 2007

• 0.25% cut in key lending rate
• 5th interest rate cut since November
• 7% China's growth target for 2015

Source: McKinsey

Getty

China contagion

On Tuesday, China's central bank cut its key lending rate by 0.25 percentage points to 4.6% in a bid to calm stock markets after the past days' turmoil.
The dramatic losses and volatility in China have shattered investor confidence and led to sharp falls in Asia and the US over the past several sessions.
The interest rate cut was the fifth by the People's Bank of China since November last year.
The move is aimed at boosting China's growth long-term, rather than having an immediate impact on investors.
Given China's central role in world trade, a slowdown in the world's second-largest economy would be likely to reverberate around the globe.
A rate cut will make it cheaper for banks to borrow from the central bank and will in turn make it easier for businesses and private people to borrow money from those banks.
On Wednesday, the Shanghai index fell 1.27% to 2,927.29, after veering in and out of negative territory.

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Analysis: Robert Peston, BBC business editor

In some ways I thought yesterday's events on markets were if anything more disturbing than Monday's global rout.
Because if share-price gains could not hold after the significant monetary easing by China's central bank, then mistrust about the true state of the world's second largest economy (actually the number-one economy on the purchasing-power-parity measure of GDP) has become very pronounced indeed.
And another thing, the Chinese interest rate cuts will exacerbate the phenomenon that has caused so much stress in so many different global markets, from commodities, to foreign exchange, to stocks and bond - the fall in the Chinese currency, the RMB, since it was allowed by Beijing to float more freely on 11 August.