China Devalues Currency, Sending U.S. Markets into a Tailspin

The People's Bank of China sent the U.S. markets into a tailspin Tuesday following its surprise move to devalue its currency, the Yuan.

The move, most likely designed to stimulate a weakening Chinese economy, did cause the Yuan to plummet to a three-year low. The U.S. dollar in turn, continued to strengthen versus other world currencies. That caused a sell-off of many companies that do international business.

So the markets turned red across the board, as the Dow and S&P 500 saw their biggest drop since July 8.

You can also blame the hit Apple stock took on China. Apple dropped more than 5% Tuesday following China's currency move. Jefferies pointed out that Apple gets a lot of its business from China phone sales. With the devaluation signaling a weaker Chinese economy, this could mean fewer phone sales for Apple if the Chinese consumer tightens the belt buckle.

Total opposite move for Google: the search giant saw a 4% jump Tuesday following a surprise after hours announcement Monday. The company will separate its core search and non-Internet search-related businesses into different units, all to be housed under a new umbrella company called Alphabet.

The business of college football is huge; it brings in millions for schools, the coaches and the TV networks -- everyone but the players. That may be about to change as the National Labor Relations Board is expected to rule this month on whether college football players can be considered employees of their school, can unionize and get a piece of that financial pie.