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(Bloomberg) -- For stock traders in Hong Kong, Monday’s mayhem was one for the history books.

As the global market meltdown worsened on Monday, the tumult in Hong Kong stood out. The city’s benchmark Hang Seng Index plunged 13%, the most since 1997, with the session concluding with the highest equity turnover ever amid what was described as “indiscriminate selling.”

Margin calls and forced selling were rampant, underscoring just how quickly the mood had deteriorated. China’s retaliation against US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs forced investors to face a new reality: the long-feared trade conflict has ratcheted up into a full-blown confrontation. Hong Kong’s free capital market and a blistering rally earlier this year also made its stocks a prime candidate for profit taking.

“For me, I replayed the my experience during March 2020, and September 2008, and other crises going back to the crash of 1987,” said Rajeev de Mello, global macro portfolio manager at Gama Asset Management. “Today’s market moves definitely reminded me of those.”

There was no shortage of superlatives for the swoon in the Asia financial hub. Its biggest exchange-traded fund tracking the Hang Seng Index tumbled by the most ever. An index tracking Chinese tech stocks also plunged a record 17%. Another gauge of the biggest mainland companies listed in the city fell into a bear market.

“It’s a tough day,” said Patrick Pan, China equity strategist at Daiwa Capital Markets Hong Kong Ltd. “It feels like as if China market ran into a perfect storm under both profit-taking pressure since the DeepSeek rally and the growing concerns amid a full blown tit-for-tat tariff wars.”

Even seasoned traders bracing for an ugly selloff were caught off guard by the scale of the wealth destruction. Now with Trump resisting pressure to reverse the tariffs and risks for a global recession rising, there’s no end in sight for the market turmoil.

“I did not sleep well during the long weekend after witnessing the losses in US stocks,” said Li Xuetong, a 15-year market veteran at Shenzhen Enjoy Investment Management Co., referring to China and Hong Kong’s holiday on Friday. He had anticipated a maximum 5% to 6% drop at the Monday open.

Li is now watching for the stop-loss threshold of 20% for some of his products. “Another day like today and we might be forced to cut positions,” he said.

The selloff in Hong Kong shares was particularly severe among Asian peers, given the market was closed on Friday. After all, Beijing’s retaliation against US tariffs already spurred Friday’s 8.9% drop in the Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index, which tracks US-listed Chinese stocks. With its individual components trading lower in US premarket trading, the gauge is set to extend losses on Monday.

The flight to safety marks a decisive end to the rally Chinese stocks enjoyed earlier this year. Instead, there’s growing concerns that an escalating trade war between the world’s two largest economies will derail Beijing’s growth plans even as its authorities weigh frontloading stimulus spending.

A state-backed fund’s purchase of stocks also failed to lift the market, with investors focusing squarely on the potential for economic disaster.

The flight from risk cut across sectors, with shares of all 50 members of the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index declining. Chinese bond issuers were among the names leading losses across Asia, with spreads on some of their investment-grade notes widening as much as 40 basis points, according to traders.

China urged resilience as the selling pressure spread, with a state-owned newspaper calling for citizens to “turn pressure into motivation.”

Investors are now waiting for more action from Beijing, with attention once again turning to the potential for stimulus to help boost the world’s second-largest economy.

Some long-only fund managers are concerned about what to do next, as they have already raised cash levels in their portfolios to meet the mandated requirements.

“I’ve increased cash levels last week, but there’s a limit to how much I can increase,” said Xin-Yao Ng, a fund manager at Aberdeen Investments. “Generally I’m required to be invested.”

--With assistance from Henry Ren and Cristin Flanagan.

(Updates with context and market prices in the 10th paragraph.)