US stocks open sharply lower, extending global rout

Wall Street stocks dived in opening trading Monday, extending a sell-off after last week's poor July US employment report raised recession worries.

About five minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 3.1 percent at 38,522.00.

The broad-based S&P 500 dropped 4.0 percent to 5,130.57, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index slumped 5.5 percent to 15,846.60.

AFP