Wall Street recovers modestly after trading resumes, energy and financials suffer heavy losses

• Trading resumes after first circuit breaker gets triggered with a 7% drop in S&P 500.
• Recovery in major indexes remain shallow on risk aversion.

Wall Street's main indexes plummetted after the opening bell and trading got halted for 15 minutes after the S&P 500 lost 7% in a quick fashion. With the trading activity restarting, indexes recovered modestly. As of writing, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was erasing 1,400 points, or 5.5%, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite were down 5.2% and 4.5%, respectively.

Energy and financial shares plunge

The S&P 500 Energy Index, which erased nearly 20% in the early trade amid oil crash, was last seen down 15.2% on the day. Meanwhile, although the 10-year US Treasury bond yield is off record lows set earlier, it's still losing more than 30% to weigh on the rate-sensitive Financials Index, which is down 7%.

Reflecting the intense flight-to-safety, the CBOE Volatility Index, Wall Street's fear gauge is at its highest level since January 2009 at 60.17, up 44% on a daily basis.