What drives the global stock sell-off?

Six weeks into 2018 the principal indexes around the globe went into freefall, following a global sell-off in stock markets. The table below shows the changes (Δ%) between the closing prices of the indexes over the course of one day. 

  Some look at the US markets for the cause, where a ‘wage growth in the US jumping to 2.9pc’ caused analysts to think that the US Federal Reserve will raise interest rates sooner than expected (here and here). Others consider it a chain reaction to developments in debt securities markets, with view on a yield increase in bonds (here). Most sources, however, seem to indicate that the cause of the price-drop in the main U.S. SEs (here, here and here) is a combination of a chain reaction to U.S. indexes changes, an increase in bond yields and fear of inflation (see here).

 Nevertheless, there is a consensus amongst most analysts with respect to two observations: first, a dip in stock markets is not a dip in the real economy, which continues to show healthy signs; second, ‘panic attacks’ tend to happen in SEs, but they usually cool-off rather quickly. These are the reasons for which the intraday negative valuation (+/- Δ% as to opening quote) looks worse than the closing price the index reports.