China Meltdown Sends Dow 400 Points Lower; Are Traders Worried Long-Term?

Chinese stocks plunged on Thursday, forcing regulators to call another time-out and institute a second circuit breaker in as many days. That is, before the regulators said they are now suspending the circuit breaker system.

The Shanghai Composite index closed 7 percent lower, causing a ripple effect across Asian markets. The Hang Seng index lost 3.09 percent while the Nikkei 225 lost 2.33 percent. European markets saw a similar fate as Britain's FTSE 100 index saw its value slashed by 30 billion pounds (approximately $43.81 billion).

U.S. investors woke up to a sea of red. The Dow Jones average opened for trading at 16,888.36 before staging a brief rally to 16,888.36. The index quickly tumbled to fresh intra-day lows in the mid-afternoon of 16,495.20.

Heading in to the final hour of trading, the Dow was tracking at 16,563.82, down 342.69 points or 2.03 percent. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY was trading down 2.3 percent at $194.23 with about an hour left in the session.

See Also: Chinese Market Has Shortest Trading Day In Its 25-Year History

Poll: 50% Of Readers Are Worried

Benzinga conducted an informal poll among its readers on Thursday asking "Does today's #ChinaMeltdown affect your trading or investing strategy?"

Fifty percent of respondents said are worried, but only in the short-term, while 9 percent of respondents are worried over the long-term impacts of the Chinese stock market meltdown. Fourteen percent of respondents aren't worried about any near-term impact, while 27 percent aren't considered of any long-term impact.