The S&P 500 is down 162.61 points, or 8 percent.
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Major US indexes are down 10 per cent or more since the beginning of the year.
Sluymer points out that if the 1,867 low does not hold, “the next key support for the broad US stock gauge is the low of around 1,820” in Q4 2014.
The slower United States growth reflects the company’s “high penetration” in its home market, Netflix said.
Separately, the Commerce Department said housing starts fell 2.5% in December from a month earlier to an annual rate of 1.149 million, a sign the housing market lost momentum at the end of 2015.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by more than 400 points Wednesday morning, with more than 1,000 listed stocks achieving their 52-week lows in the first 20 minutes of trading.
Several traders and investors said it remained too risky to buy into the stock market at present, given concerns about the global economy and the weak oil price.
The Stoxx Europe 600 slumped 3.6%.
OVERSEAS: Japan’s Nikkei fell 3.7 percent and is down more than 20 percent from its June peak. Oil prices have tumbled 20% so far this year.
CURRENCIES: The dollar fell to 116.52 yen from 117.44 yen late Tuesday.
“Given what we’ve seen [in markets] the last few weeks…you couldn’t possibly expect we’ll continue a light bull rally” this year, said Peter Dixon, global financial economist at Commerzbank.
Lackluster earnings reports also weighed on stocks, with IBM falling 4.5 percent after the tech giant reported lower revenues for the 15th straight quarter and gave a muted forecast for 2016.
“Oil remains below $29 a barrel and looks more inclined to test the limits of how low it can go, rather than find any traction regardless of the consequences”, said IG analyst Alastair McCaig. Disappointing earnings from a handful of big-cap names are only exacerbating the selling pressure, with International Business Machines Corp.
Losses in the volatile Shanghai Composite Index were comparatively muted, as the index lost 1%.
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Chao Deng contributed to this article.
