At the closing bell, the Dow was down by 2,025.32, 7.83 percent, which was worse than the figure that had forced trading to a halt earlier in the day. It signals the worst ever point drop for the index.  

It was the worst day of trading on Wall Street since the GFC in 2008, with the oil prices plummeting and the futures market also suffering astronomical losses.

Trading was stopped by the Street's 'kill-switch', which is known as a circuit breaker, not long after the opening bell on Monday after stocks dropped by seven percent. 

It resumed after a 15 minute break but struggled to recover throughout the day and ended up finishing worse off than the day's beginning. For trading to have been halted for a second time, stocks would have had to have dropped by 13 percent.