Stock futures plunged on Monday as U.S. recession fears caused turmoil throughout the global markets.

Dow Jones Industrial Average futures tumbled 1,300 points, while Nasdaq Composite futures slid 5%. S&P 500 futures also fell by more than 3.5%.

Dow futures and Nasdaq futures were both down more than 1,000 points before Monday’s opening bell on Monday while the S&P 500 futures gave up nearly 5% as Wall Street braced for a massive selloff triggered by the meltdown in Japan and renewed fears of a US recession.

The Tokyo-based Nikkei index suffered its worst single-day retreat since the infamous “Black Monday” crash of 1987 — closing 12.4% lower — while European stocks fell to near six-month lows.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index was down 2.6% at 487.15 points, its lowest since Feb. 13.

Some of the world’s largest tech companies saw their stocks get hammered early on Monday morning.

Nvidia, Meta and Apple all lost 6% of their market capitalization.

Apple, the iPhone maker, was still reeling from the announcement on Saturday that billionaire investor Warren Buffett cut his stake in the company by half — though the Berkshire Hathaway chief remains the firm’s largest shareholder.

Last week, Buffett also sold off $3 billion worth of stock in Bank of America.

Cryptocurrency was also hit hard by Monday’s meltdown in the markets. Bitcoin shed more than 17% of its value while ethereum was down more than 21%.

The global digital currency market lost a total of $1.79 trillion from its market capitalization over the course of the last 24 hours.

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With the jobless rate unexpectedly rising, the so-called Sahm rule is now in play. Named after former Federal Reserve economist Claudia Sahm, the rule has successfully predicted every recession since 1970.

Ticker Security Last Change Change %
I:DJI DOW JONES AVERAGES 39737.26 -610.71 -1.51%
SP500 S&P 500 5346.56 -100.12 -1.84%
I:COMP NASDAQ COMPOSITE INDEX 16776.163609 -417.98 -2.43%

A recession would upset the Fed’s plan to slowly introduce rate cuts as part of a “soft landing.” But the latest data has led some critics to pounce on the central bank for not acting fast enough to slash rates when signs of cooling inflation were apparent.

“The Federal Reserve has been late in cutting rates, but that has been true for some time,” Paul Donovan, a UBS economist, wrote in a client note Monday morning cited by The New York Times.

“The policy error is making things worse for lower income households.”

Prior to Monday, the markets priced in a 78% chance the Fed will not only cut rates in September, but ease by a full 50 basis points.