Stock market news live updates: Wall St. sinks amid China’s Evergrande contagion fears, US debt politics

MarketWatch

Why Evergrande has suddenly exploded into a potential global financial market crisis

On Monday, this somewhat obscure, overseas risk suddenly shook up financial markets from Asia to Europe and the U.S., where all three major benchmark stock indexes, the S&P 500 (SPX) Dow industrials (DJIA) and Nasdaq Composite (COMP) appeared to be headed for the worst one-day drop in more than two months. On one level, Evergrande—which reportedly faces at least $83.5 million in interest payments due on Thursday, with a 30-day grace period — is raising concerns about a liquidity crisis among all Chinese and Hong Kong property companies, as markets quickly turn off access to dollar funding. In a more macro way, the firm’s woes are bringing to the fore China’s wide-scale regulatory crackdown across most of its businesses, starting with technology giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (HK:9988) which is rattling confidence in the world’s second-largest economy.