Its 'Black Monday' as stocks record historic fall

14:43 - 24 August 2015

China's stock market has been struggling over the past few months.

Fresh off taking a hit of more than 4% on Friday, a sell-off that took weekly losses to more than 10%, Chinese stocks were hit hard yet again on Monday.

The global market crash maintained its presence on Monday, starting with China and then continuing to the rest of the world.

At the close the benchmark Shanghai Composite index fell 8.492% to 3,209.91, increasing its losses from the multiyear peak of 5,178.2 which it hit on June 12 to 38%.

The Chinese media is calling the market collapse "Black Monday."

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Other markets in Asia also got hit, with Hong Kong and Japan both falling 5%. European markets continued the trend, with most major indices down 2%-3% in early trading. And in the US, DOW futures were down more than 400 points three hours before the market even opened.

China's Shanghai index is now trading at the lowest level it has ever been since mid-March, and it has already wiped out all of this year's gains.

Coming in at 8.49%, it was the largest one-day percentage decline since February 27, 2007, slightly surpassing the previous largest plunge of 8.48%, which was recorded on July 27.

The drop was also the sixth-largest percentage decline on record since the Asian giant introduced daily down limits of 10% on December 16, 1996.