BY BEN ROONEY, CNN
A wave of selling hit Wall Street early Thursday as markets tumbled from Tokyo to London, but the U.S. stock losses ebbed in early trading.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.3%, the S&P 500 slid 0.5%, and the Nasdaq sank 0.4%
The declines were modest compared with overseas markets.
Japan was by far the hardest hit. The Nikkei sunk 7.3%. Stocks in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Syndey and Singapore also fell. European markets were all down 2% or more.
The global sell-off was triggered by worse-than-expected Chinese data that showed manufacturing slowed for the first time in seven months, and the latest minutes from the U.S. Federal Reserve's monetary policy meeting.
"We fear that this may get very ugly, very quickly," wrote Dennis Gartman, editor and publisher of daily financial newsletter The Gartman Letter. He said the big move lower in Japanese stocks could set the stage for a further fall of 7% to 10%.
U.S. stocks erased an early rally Wednesday as investors faced mixed messages from the Federal Reserve about when its bond buying program might end.
Economic bright spots: the Department of Labor reported that initial claims for unemployment benefits fell to 340,000 last week, down from 363,000 the week before.
Separately, new home sales rose 2.3% in April compared with the month prior, according to government data.
Eye on retail: Shares of Ralph Lauren slumped after the retailer failed to meet lowered revenue forecasts, even as earnings jumped 35%.
Gap and Sears Holdings are up after the bell.
Shares of Hewlett-Packard surged about 11% after the PC-maker reported quarterly earnings that beat estimates.
Shares of Tesla nudged higher, a day after the electric car maker announced that it had repaid a $465 million loan from the government nearly a decade before it was scheduled to do so.
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