It’s a bloodbath, with the Dow set to open 750 points lower “thanks” to the +377 fair value…

… but it could have been much worse, with S&P futures actually trading toward the highs of the overnight session after tumbling an additional 3.5% from Monday’s close, as risk assets around the world crashed then modestly rebounded even as traders remain on edge over what the implosion in the vol complex means for everyone.

World stock markets nosedived for a fourth day running on Tuesday, having seen $4 trillion wiped off from what just eight days ago had been record high values.

“Playtime is officially over, kids,” analysts at Rabobank said. “Rising volatility painfully reminds some investors that one-way bets don’t exist.”

“Since last autumn, investors had been betting on the ‘Goldilocks’ economy – solid economic expansion, improving corporate earnings and stable inflation. But the tide seems to have changed,” said Norihiro Fujito, senior investment strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities.

Meanwhile, “The euphoria has turned to terror.”

There was a modest bound in European bourses, which opened sharply lower in the wake of the largest ever point loss in Dow Jones Industrial Average history. London’s FTSE 100 lost 3.5% at the opening bell, with every constituent falling and financial stocks hit hardest. The Europe-wide Stoxx 600 fell 2.2 %, while Frankfurt’s Xetra Dax 30 fell 3.5%, before recouping some losses.As of this writing, core European cash equity markets trade around -1.5%/-2.0%.

In fact, as Bloomberg notes, the Stoxx Europe 600 Index at one point today slumped the most since Brexit, with every industry sector falling as much as 2 percent.

This came after massive falls on Asian bourses. Stocks in Japan and China were the worst hit, with Hong Kong tumbling over 6% in early trading. Japan’s Topix index was down by more than 6%, marking its biggest one-day fall in a year and a half, while Japan’s Nikkei fell over 10% from its Jan 23 high, entering a correction, after plunging as much as 7.1%, triggering JSCC intraday margin call for Japanese index futures.

And while Asian stocks also managed to rebound modestly from overnight lows it was not before the MSCI Asia Pacific index erased 2018 gains, just like the Dow Jones, which is itself on the verge of a -10% correction.

Meanwhile, in some welcome news, there was at least a little normalcy as Treasuries extend their safe-haven rally with 10-year yield down three basis points to 2.68%, while euro-area bonds found support.

The currency market was stock-driven for another day with the dollar turning negative as European equities pared losses and S&P futures traded briefly in the green, although after the Bloomberg Dollar index was modestly in the red, it has since surge higher suggesting things are about to get ugly again.

As Bloomberg notes, major G-10 FX pairs again remain relatively immune to wild equity swings, yuan rallies after PBOC says the market will have a larger role in FX rate; USD/JPY holds close to 109.00. Haven demand eased modestly, with the yen and the Swiss franc turning defensive. The euro moved above the $1.24 handle as short-term accounts closed shorts with a loss. The Aussie remains lower after uneventful RBA policy meeting.

Whipsaw in core fixed income, early trades see fading of rally in UST, Bund and Eurodollar futures before uptick in volatility measures prompts reversal; UST/bund spread wider by 7bps with futures block trades in focus, iTraxx crossover opens sharply wider but settles close to key 260bps level. Bitcoin briefly trades below $6k level.

In the commodities complex, both WTI and Brent crude futures trade lower albeit off worst levels with prices suppressed by the ongoing global risk sentiment; the recovery for WTI has also been stalled by a failure to reclaim USD 64/bbl to the upside with energy news-flow otherwise relatively light ahead of tonight’s API inventories. In metals markets, spot gold (+0.25%) continues to benefit from its safe-haven appeal and the softer USD despite the World Gold Council stating that demand for the yellow metal fell to its lowest level since 2009 during 2017. The Bloomberg Commodity Index is trading 0.2% lower, having pared loss of as much as 0.4% earlier.

But unlike recent days, when attention was on US TSYs and the Dollar, today – and for the coming days – it will be all about the VIX, which extended its advance after Monday’s biggest-ever jump, which sent it higher by 116% on the session, heading for a level not seen since August 2011.

As of 6:39am in New York, the VIX climbed another 24% to 46.37. As discussed last night, the surge in the volatility measure is already claiming casualties, with various VIX-linked ENT set for “termination” and raising questions about the future of exchange-traded products tied to it.

And while we wait for today’s trading session to unfold, here is what else happened overnight.

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