The day after the U.S. stock market fell by its largest amount in six years, Japan’s Nikkei index was down by 6.5% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down more than 6%.

When European bourses opened, they also fell. London’s FTSE 100 index was down 3.5%, and a similar drop was evident on Germany’s DAX. The Stoxx 600 index, which tracks the largest European companies, was down more than 3%.

However, at the time of writing (around 4.30 a.m. ET) there had been some signs of a recovery, with the FTSE 100 only down 1.6% on the day so far, the DAX down 1.9%, and the Stoxx 600 down 1.6%.

The slide is widely seen as the result of traders worrying about future interest rate rises. U.S. jobs data lit the fire at the end of last week, with higher-than-expected wage increases prompting inflationary concerns.

All this comes after a year in which global stock markets gained 22%.

“Markets are coming to the conclusion that the U.S. economy is close to overheating and therefore that the risks of inflation are bigger than the risks of a recession,” Deutsche Bank economist Torsten Slok said, quoted by the Financial Times.