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NEW YORK, New York – It was an earth-shattering day on global markets on Monday, with all the major indices crashing from all-time highs recorded just last month.

Already reeling from weeks of uncertainty, the world was knocked for six by oil prices falling as much as 36%, with global markets already in a near-state of collapse as the number of coronavirus cases worldwide surged past 110,000.

All the major indices ended down by more than 7%, with the Dow Jones dropping more than 2,000 points, triggering a halt in trading.

The worst performing index was Brazil’s Ibovespa which fell 11,929 points or 12.17% to 86,067.20, its worst fall in 21 years. The key index is now down 28% since the start of the year.

“It’s certainly one for the history books,” Matthew Keator, managing partner in the Keator Group, a wealth management firm in Lenox, Massachusetts told the Reuters Thomson news agency Monday. “The markets are now pricing in a high probability of recession.”

Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New York, added: “There’s a lot of fear in the market and if the price of oil continues to move lower it’s an indication that a global recession is not far away.”

At the close of trading Monday the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 2,013.76 points, or 7.79%, at 23,851.02.

The Standard and Poor’s 500 was off 225.81 points, or 7.60%, at 2,746.56, 19% below its record-high on 19 February.

The Nasdaq Composite .dived 624.94 points, or 7.29%, to 7,950.68.

In London, the FTSE 100 dived 7.69. The CAC 40 in Paris shed 8.39%. The German Dax dropped 7.94%.

On Asian markets, the Nikkei 225 in Japan was down 1,050.99 points or 5.07% at 19,698.76.

The Australian All Ordinaries had its worst single day of trading since the Global Financial Crisis. It shed 465.10 points or 7.40% of its value to 5,822.40.

In China, the Shanghai Composite bared best of all, but still gave up 91.22 points or 3.01% to 2,943.29.

In Hong Kong, the key index, the Hang Heng, dived 1,106.21 points or 4.23% to 25,040.46.

On currency markets, the U.S. dollar has dived against the major European and UK currencies, but has rallied against the commodity currencies – but for the Australian dollar.

The Aussie initially dropped around 5%, more than 3 cents, however profit-taking saw the unit rise just as quickly as it fell. From a low of 0.6313, the Australian dollar rose to 0.6607 around the New York close Monday.

The euro was trading at lofty heights at 1.1452. The British pound was in demand at 1.3113. The Japanese yen was consolidating the dramatic gains it made in Asia, and was quoted around 102.20. The Swiss franc soared to 0.9253.

The Canadian dollar fell to 1.3669. The New `Zealand dollar steadied at 0.6356, holding its strength due to crosses with the Aussie dollar.