Dow futures plunge by more than 600 points; European stocks fall across the board in early trading. Trump says the temporary US-Iran ceasefire agreement is over and urges a complete cutoff of trade with Spain.

The situation in the Middle East has deteriorated. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said that after the U.S. launched a series of military strikes against Iran in response to the attack on oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, Iran carried out attacks on U.S. military targets in Bahrain and Kuwait and shot down a U.S. MQ-9 drone that attempted to interfere with the operation. U.S. President Trump said the temporary U.S.-Iran ceasefire agreement has come to an end. International oil prices are now up more than 6%. Futures for the three major U.S. stock indexes are pointing lower: Dow futures are now down 627 points, or nearly 1.2%, at 52,570 points; S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq futures are down 0.9% and 1.4%, respectively. Spot gold is down nearly 1% at $4,065 per ounce. Memory-chip stocks are generally under pressure in pre-market trading; Micron (MU.US) is down 5.2% pre-market, while Seagate (STX.US), Western Digital (WDC.US), and SanDisk (SNDK.US) are down between 4.2% and 5.4% pre-market.

Major stock markets in the Asia-Pacific region were mixed today (8th). Japan’s Nikkei index continued its decline throughout the day, down 2.1%; Taiwan stocks rebounded 0.6%; South Korea’s stocks continued to fall, down 5.4%, accumulating losses of more than 20% versus their historical highs—technically entering a “bear market.” South Korea’s regulators held an emergency meeting today, pointing out that the high concentration of the semiconductor sector has intensified market volatility. Hong Kong stocks rebounded 702 points, or 3%, to 24,199 points, outperforming within the region. Star stocks rose 1.3% to 5,410 points, after rising as high as 5,414 intraday to set a record high.

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Major European stock markets fell broadly in early trading today. The pan-European 600 index was down nearly 1.5% at 636.91 points. The UK’s FTSE 100 index is down 1.3% at 10,523 points. France’s CAC is down nearly 1.8% at 8,282 points. Germany’s DAX is down 2.1% at 24,940 points. Italy’s FTSE MIB is down nearly 1.4% at 51,747 points. Spain’s IBEX 35 is down nearly 2.2% at 19,215 points. Trump said he does not want any dealings with Spain and wants to “cut off all trade.”

UniCredit, Italy’s second-largest bank, announced that after its bid acquisition offer concluded in early this month, it has obtained a 47.6% stake in Germany’s Commerzbank. UniCredit said it has no intention of controlling Commerzbank, and wants to maintain a stake of more than 30%, but will not trigger a full mandatory takeover offer. UniCredit is down 3.5%, while Commerzbank is down 1.3%. Other major European bank stocks fell noticeably: HSBC is down 1.6%; Spain’s BBVA, Santander, BNP Paribas, Barclays, and Standard Chartered are down between 2.6% and 3.9%; Deutsche Bank and Société Générale each fell more than 4%. (da/u) (U.S. stock quotes are real-time streaming; OTC market stocks are excluded, and data is delayed by at least 15 minutes.)