The stock market sell-off on Thursday began with a mysterious overnight plunge in equity futures that caused the CME Group to halt trading in several intervals.

When futures opened for trading at 6:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday, the eMini S&P 500 futures fell as low as 1.8 percent in a sudden move on above average volume.


Speculation for the swell in volume and plunge in futures included the news of the arrest of the CFO of the Chinese telecom company Huawei. The arrest was made by the Canadian authorities on the extradition request by the U.S.

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