China’s Shanghai Composite plunged 8.5% on August 24, 2015, during the global sell-off called Black Monday.
The sharp fall followed a broader Chinese stock-market bubble and a summer of severe volatility. Investors worried about slowing Chinese economic growth, falling commodity prices, currency uncertainty, and the effectiveness of official market-support measures. Selling spread internationally, with large declines in European and U.S. indexes, although the causes and effects differed across countries.
The Shanghai Composite tracks shares listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange; it is not the same as the Shenzhen Composite or Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index. August 24 became known as Black Monday because of the unusually broad and dramatic losses, but it was not the 1987 crash. The Chinese market turbulence continued into 2016, with further declines and trading halts adding to concerns about market stability.