NEW YORK, New York – U.S. Treasuries rose sharply on Tuesday, triggering alarm on equity markets which fell hard.

The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield jumped to 3.9 percent, while the 2-year rate rose sharply to 4.7 percent, the highest levels 3 months.

“The market seems composed despite the fact that it’s going lower at the current moment; this is just the way some investors got ahead of themselves,” KKM Financial CEO Jeff Kilburg told CNBC Tuesday.

“There is some emotion in the market, but this downdraft is going to be bought. It’s still buoyant,” he said.

The S&P Global Purchasing Manufacturer’s index revealed that business activity in the U.S. jumped to its highest level in 8 months in February to 50.2 from 46.8 in January, according to a survey.

“This activity data doesn’t do anything to get rid of the fears that the Fed might be more hawkish and might feel like taking rates higher than what investors were thinking just a month ago,” Brian Jacobsen, senior investment strategist at Allspring Global Investments told Reuters news agency Tuesday.

The Nasdaq Composite shed 294.97 points or 2.50 percent, to close Tuesday at 11,492.30.

The Dow Jones industrials tumbled 697.10 points or 2.06 percent to 33,129.59.

The Standard and Poor’s 500 declined 81.75 points or 2.00 percent to 3,997.34.

On Tuesday, the foreign exchange market saw the U.S. dollar steam ahead. The Euro to US dollar pair, EURUSD, closed at 1.0646, which was a decrease of 0.0037 or 0.35 percent.

The Japanese yen plummeted 0.770 or 0.57 percent to 134.94.

The U.S. dollar hammered the Canadian dollar, which dived 0.65 percent to 1.3538.

The British pound eased to 1.2105. The Swiss franc pair dropped to 0.9276. The Australian dollar weakened 0.70 percent, closing Tuesday at around 0.6854.

Finally, the New Zealand dollar saw a decrease of 0.00416 or 0.67 percent, to 0.6209. The market’s mixed results indicate that traders and investors are closely monitoring global events and adjusting their trading strategies accordingly.

Global stock markets ended the day mixed on Tuesday, with some indices finishing lower while others closed with slight gains.

In the UK, the FTSE 100 in London fell by 0.46 percent, closing at 7,977.75.

The German Dax in Frankfurt retreated 0.52 percent, finishing at 15,397.62. Meanwhile, the CAC 40 in Paris, France, ended the day down 0.37 percent at 7,308.65.

In Asia, the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo closed 0.21 percent lower at 27,473.10. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index saw a larger decline, dropping by 1.71 percent to close Tuesday at 20,529.49.

In China, the Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.49 percent to 3,306.52. The Shenzhen Index saw slight gains, edging up 0.12 percent to 11,968.60.

The Singapore Straits Times Index fella hefty 1.89 percent to 3,306.86.

The Australian All Ordinaries slid 7.90 points or 0.10 percent to 7,544.60.

The S&P/NZX 50 in New Zealand fell by 0.79 percent to close at 11,801.49, while the KOSPI Composite Index in South Korea finished up by 0.16 percent at 2,458.96.

Elsewhere, Johannesburg’s Top 40 USD Net TRI Index saw a sharp drop, falling by 2.03 percent to close at 4,288.45.