The storm in world financial markets shows no sign of blowing itself out with shares in Asia heavily down again amid recession fears.
Most markets followed Wall Street down after the trade war between the USA and China - the world’s two biggest economies reached a new dangerous pitch of intensity.
China unleashed more countermeasures after the White House clarified that the United States will tax Chinese imports at 145%, not the 125% rate that Trump had written about in his posting on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday.
Tokyo was particularly badly hit with Japan’s Nikkei 225 index down 5.6% at one stage before recovering slightly to stand at 33,117.93, 4.3%, or 1,491.07.
The yen surged against the US dollar, which also lost value against the euro.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index dropped 1.39%, or 107.2 points to 7,602.40, while South Korea's Kospi fell 1.3% to 2,413.16.
However in China markets, Honk Kong’s Hang Seng index was up 1.67% at 21,026.70.
The latest turbulence in Asia came after anther bruising day’s trading in New York which wiped out most of the euphoria gains on Wednesday after President Trump backed down on reciprocal tariffs on dozens of countries - excluding China.
The S&P 500 shed 3.46% and closed at 5,268.05, while the tech heavy Nasdaq Composite slid 4.31% to end at 16,387.31. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1,014.79 points, or 2.5%, settling at 39,593.66.
Big fallers included Apple, down 4.2% and Elon Musk’s Tesla which took a 7.3% hit. Chip giant Nvidia lost nearly 6% while Meta Platforms slipped almost 7%.
