Chinese stocks plunged 8.5 per cent at the end of a tumultuous session dubbed “Black Monday” by no less than Beijing’s official mouthpiece, intensifying concerns over a made-in-China economic slowdown that stands to reverberate across the globe.

Reflecting these fears, spooked investors sold off almost every asset class in almost every market. all Asian indices fell; oil prices hit a six-year low. Even the price of gold, a traditional haven, fell 0.6 per cent to break a five-day winning streak.

Global stock markets have lost more than $5.5tn since the People’s Bank of China devalued the renminbi on August 11. Beijing couched the move as market liberalisation, but numerous analysts saw it as a bid to boost exports after other stimulative policies failed to spur economic recovery.