Stock market today: Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq futures plunge as Trump tariff rout set to escalate

[progree]

17. I don't know anything about futures, but I know "they happen", weekday nights and early mornings

too. I don't know where they are bought and sold and if a regular person can get in on the action.

When the futures are way down just prior to the regular markets opening, then the regular markets are almost certain to open way down too.

I watch futures at:

https://www.Investing.com
Lots of info here including markets across the world. But some peculiarities about the site, I explain some of them at
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143432216#post6

Anyway, on the right hand side, the "U.S. 30" is the Dow futures, and the "U.S. 500" is the S&P 500 futures. When the markets are open, they are synonymous with the regular Dow and S&P 500.

Another one: https://www.cnn.com/markets/premarkets

While on the subject, at 952 PM EDT:

Dow futures down 2.1% (800 points)
S&P 500 futures down 2.4%

At Investing.com again, to see what the Asian markets are doing:

On the main panel, click on "Indices" if it's not already selected, and then click on Asia/Pacific

Australia down 3.7%, Nikkei down 5.8%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng down 10%, FTSE China down 8%, Korea KOSPI down 4.4%. These Asian ones are the actual markets, not futures.

Edit: Some of the Asian/Pacific ones have temporarily stopped trading and some of those have resumed, due to "circuit breakers" that are meant to slow things down when markets are dropping fast. Pay close attention to the time shown for each one of them (at the far right), which will tell you when the last trade occurred...