Stock indexes worldwide tumbled yesterday, led by banking stocks in Europe and technology stocks on Wall Street on persisting fears of a global economic slowdown, while benchmark 10-year Treasury yields hit their lowest in a year on demand for assets deemed less risky.

European shares extended the previous week’s big losses, with the FTSEurofirst 300 index of top regional shares falling more than three per cent to its lowest in 16 months.

Cyclical sectors such as banking and automobiles bore the brunt of the selloff.

The STOXX Europe 600 banking index tumbled over 5.5 per cent, putting the index’s losses for this year at more than 24 per cent on concerns about banks’ profit outlook amid a negative rate environment.

Wall Street continued Friday’s technology-led selloff, with the benchmark S&P 500 stock index falling more than 2 per cent.

The S&P financial index fell about three per cent, with shares of Bank of America, JPMorgan and Citigroup dragging down the index.

The cost of insuring the European financial sector’s senior debt against default also climbed to its highest level since late 2013.

US crude prices fell after a meeting between Saudi Arabia and Venezuela failed to reassure investors of measures to bolster sagging prices.

Brent crude was last down 37 cents, or 1.09 per cent, at $33.69 a barrel. US crude was last down 47 cents, or 1.52 per cent, at $30.42 per barrel.

MSCI’s all-country world equity index, which tracks shares in 45 nations, was last down 7.5 points, or 2.05 per cent, to 359.07.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 379.37 points, or 2.34 per cent, to 15,825.6, the S&P 500 lost 45.32 points, or 2.41 per cent, to 1,834.73 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 130.44 points, or 2.99 per cent, to 4,232.71.

Europe’s broad FTSEurofirst 300 index was last down 3.66 per cent at 1,236.11.

Many Asian share markets were shut for the Lunar New Year holiday. Chinese markets will remain shut this entire week.

Benchmark 10-year Treasury yields reached a one-year low of 1.7400 per cent, as the stock market decline and concerns about slowing global growth increased investor appetite for safe-haven government debt.

US 10-year Treasury notes were last up 30/32 in price to yield 1.7431, from a yield of 1.848 per cent late Friday.

The dollar fell to a roughly 14-month low against the yen of 115.170 yen, partly on doubts about the effectiveness of the Bank of Japan’s negative interest rate policy.

Safe-haven spot gold reached a peak of $1,198.70 an ounce, its strongest since June 22.