Tech stocks in the US took a hit as the rest of the market nosedived on Tuesday, with Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Alphabet, Cisco and Sony being among the notable names affected.
Some Australian tech companies also saw their figures fall as the US fever spread Down Under.
While the Dow tumbled 1175 points or 4.6%, its biggest one-day drop, the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 3.9% to 6967.
Apple, which reported its quarterly earnings last week, fell 2.5% after having taken a 4.3% fall on Friday. Alphabet, the parent company of Google, saw its shares fall 5.1%.
{loadposition sam08}Facebook dropped 4.1%, Amazon took a hit of 2.8% and Cisco topped the losers with 5.3%. Microsoft was less affected, with its shares losing 2.1% of their value.
In Australia, online accounting firm Xero, which started listing exclusively on the ASX this week, fell 2.5% to $30.74.
TPG went down to $5.95%, a drop of 6.15%, while Vocus fell to $2.92, a fall of 6.1%.
Data centre operator NextDC also was affected, with its shares falling to $5.81, a fall of 5% and Netcomm joined those losing value to finish the day at $11.09, a loss of 4.8% for Tuesday.
Cryptocurrencies followed in the wake of real-world currencies, with bitcoin briefly falling below US$6000, before recovering to about US$6300 by the close of the day.
A day before that, a man who foresaw the 2008 financial crisis, predicted that bitcoin, which he described as the "biggest bubble in human history", would crash.
Nouriel Roubini said traders would buy and sell their own assets — what is known as "wash trading" — to prop up the prices and manipulate markets.
Bitcoin was valued at about US$20,000 six weeks ago.