Britain’s shocking decision to quit Europe spooked investors around the globe Friday, causing stock markets to tank and producing the most chaotic trading day since the depths of the 2008 financial crisis.
Fearing Brexit would spark another full-blown crisis, investors dumped stocks and piled into less risky investments like Treasuries and gold.
The Dow Jones industrial average plunged 610 points, or 3.4 percent, to 17,400.75, pushing it into the red for the year. It was the worst one-day performance since Aug. 8, 2011, when the blue-chip index collapsed following Standard & Poor’s downgrade of US debt.
With Friday’s drop, both the Dow and S&P 500 gave up their gains for the year.
The S&P fell 76 points, or 3.6 percent, wiping out about $685 billion in market value. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite dropped 202 points, or 4 percent.
Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at BMO Private Bank, told The Post that he had a call with clients to warn them off comparing the Brexit to the September 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers — the bankruptcy that set world markets spiraling down and sapped credit markets.
“In fact, one of the things I’m likely to do is say, ‘This is not a Lehman moment,’ ” he said. “I think this is certainly a big surprise. This is an event most market players got pretty wrong.”
The day Lehman collapsed, the Dow fell 504 points, or 4.4 percent.
Investors worrying about their retirement plans would do well to remember that rebounds often follow market shocks, according to Jeff Kleintop, chief global investment strategist at Charles Schwab.
“It is important for long-term investors to note that in each of these instances stocks rebounded to their pre-shock level in three or four months, even when a recession took place,” he added.
Bank stocks were particularly hard hit on fears that trading would dry up because of the financial, political and economic uncertainty.
The British pound took a historic drubbing. The sterling plummeted more than 10 percent against the US dollar, hitting lows not seen since 1985.
“Certainly it’s very bad,” Derek Halpenny, European head of global markets research at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi in London, told The Post. “With the economy already slowing, it’s very likely we’re going to go into a recession.”
In the US, oil prices were off 5 percent to $47.59 a barrel. Gold was up 4.6 percent to $1,321.10 as investors sought safety.