Europe’s main stock markets, which had surged on Tuesday after China’s moves, reopened two percent down on Wednesday morning as the jittery mood returned and sent investors back into safe-haven German and United States government bonds.

U.S. stocks are opening sharply higher Wednesday after slumping for six straight days amid concern that growth in China was slowing more quickly than previously thought.

The Dow fell about 1,900 points over that period, while the slump wiped more than US$2 trillion off the value of S&P 500 companies.

US markets looked set for more gains, with futures for the Dow Jones and S&P both up 0.4 per cent. The Nasdaq composite was up 115 points, or 2.6 percent, at 4,642.

The stock market rout after China devalued the yuan forced the country’s central bank to initiate a number of measures to reassure investors and increase liquidity, including announcing a reduction in interest rates and slashing banks’ reserve requirement ratio.

So, many in Asia went to bed on Tuesday smiling over China’s decision to slash its key interest rate, only to awaken to yet another decline overnight on Wall Street, Nicholas Teo, an analyst at CMC Markets, said in a commentary. However, he also stated that the situation could still change before the Fed’s next policy meeting scheduled for mid-September.

The apparent inability of Chinese regulators to calm the markets has spooked investors already fretting over when the U.S. Federal Reserve will raise interest rates.

– August 24: In what is dubbed “Black Monday“, Shanghai shares nosedive 8.49 percent, the biggest daily drop in eight years, after losing 11 percent the previous week.

“Asset prices sold off so much and so drastically, people went in and did start to bottom-fish”, said David Lyon, global investment specialist at J.P. Morgan Private Bank in San Francisco. Cameron rose $17.27 to $59.75.

Monsanto shares climbed 8.6 percent on news that the agricultural products maker has chose to abandon its takeover bid for rival Syngenta. The stock gained $7.55 to $96.97. The Shenzhen Component Index added 3.58 percent to close at 10,254.35 points.

Asian markets bobbed in and out of negative territory in early trading but appeared to regain buying momentum by early afternoon. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index also gained 2.5 percent, with most of the region’s shares trading higher. Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 3.6 percent. Chico’s gained 3.3 percent.

Elsewhere in commodities, October natural gas lost four cents to US$2.66 per thousand cubic feet, while copper reversed its slide as the December contract shot up nine cents to US$2.33 a pound.