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By Simon Denyer and Renae Merle January 7 at 11:55 AM Follow @simondenyer Follow @renaemerle

BEIJING — Global stock markets fell for a sixth day Thursday as another collapse in China’s ailing share market spread like contagion across the world.

It all began on Thursday in a flash.

Chinese stocks traded for less than 30 minutes, slumping 7 percent before triggering the second emergency market closure this week and generating talk of a crisis.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index fell 2.5 percent in early London trading, while Germany’s Dax index slipped 3.5 percent.

In the United States, stocks fell more than 1 percent in the early minutes of trading. The Dow Jones industrial average, which tracks 30 blue-chip stocks, fell nearly 2 percent or about 300 points before beginning to regain some ground. The Standard & Poor’s 500, a broader measure of the market, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq, were also down significantly.

Against a backdrop of a weak economy and, some argue, an overvalued currency, confidence in China had long been in short supply. But investors also blamed ill-considered and poorly explained moves by the authorities for fueling the panic this week.

Market confidence was dented early Thursday by a sharp devaluation in the Chinese currency, which was interpreted as a sign that the authorities are becoming increasingly rattled about the nation’s ailing economy.