Shares on Japan's key stock exchange plummeted Tuesday, highlighting investor fears about political turmoil in Washington and this month's massive losses on Wall Street.
The Nikkei lost 1,000 points -- five percent of its value --to close Tuesday at 19,155.14, finishing under 20,000 points for the first time since September 2017. Tuesday's closing numbers are down 21 percent from its October high.
China's Shanghai index finished nearly one percent lower Tuesday.Markets in Hong Kong, Australia, South Korea, the U.S. and Europe were all closed in observance of Christmas.
The losses on the Nikkei were a spillover from Monday's down day in the U.S., where the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and NASDAQ all lost more than two percent, continuing this month's run of near-daily losses, putting U.S. markets on track for its worst December since 1931, during the height of the Great Depression.
The U.S. Christmas Eve selloff was triggered in part by President Donald Trump's Twitter attacks on the central bank, the Federal Reserve, and its chairman, Jerome Powell, for a recent decisions to raise interest rates, as well the partial shutdown of the U.S. government.Investors were also rattled by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's phone calls to the heads of the nation's six largest banks on Sunday to determine if they had enough capital on hand to continue operating normally.
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