China’s stock market, Shanghai Composite, loses 8.4 percent in hours

Asian stock markets took a battering in the first hours of Monday trading, exacerbating last week’s worldwide stock sell-off over fears that China’s sluggish economy may only get worse.

China’s principal stock market, the Shanghai Composite, lost 8.4 percent of its value in just a couple of hours and, according to CNN, some of China’s biggest companies, private- and state-owned, took the maximum allowed 10 percent daily loss within an hour. That’s on top of a loss of 11.5 percent last week. The smaller Shenzhen Composite also lost nearly 8 percent Monday morning.

The slide was region-wide because so many Asian economies are closely tied to China’s.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng and Japan’s Nikkei indexes also suffered major losses Monday morning — 3.9 percent and 3.0 percent, respectively by 10:30 p.m. EDT Sunday in the U.S. Asian currencies also took losses against the U.S. dollar.