Recession jitters knock global stock markets to fresh lows

Warning over US economy triggers late sell-off on Wall Street, weighing on markets in Asia and Europe

Global stock markets are sliding to new lows as fears of recession grip investors.

The warning from the US Federal Reserve chair, Janet Yellen, on Wednesday that the world's biggest economy could be hit by the current turmoil led to a late sell-off on Wall Street, which has followed through to Asia and Europe on Thursday.

I think this is going to be a difficult year for investors and even a fledgling US economic recovery looks to be snuffed out by global markets development.

There is very little good news and continuous bad news and this is a test of market confidence.

Related: Market turmoil: FTSE 100 hits lowest since July 2012 as rout deepens - business live

What this shows is that the risk-off mode has come back very quickly and that the worst may still be to come in these markets. What is different to previous times is that the bad news in now coming from everywhere - China, Portugal, the US, the commodity sector, the banking sector. It's like several smaller crises could combine into one big crisis.