Netflix shares took a beating early on after an analyst downgraded the company to neutral -- a sign of how little it took to spark a sell-off amid Monday's roller coaster ride. The Internet giant's shares were down as much as 7% at one point Monday but recovered some to end the day with a 3.9% loss. Amazon also felt the heat with a 5.8% drop to close at $636.99.

Wall Streeters in the U.S. awoke to news of a crash in mainland China indexes that spurred regulators to halt trading early on Monday. The Dow Jones index opened Monday with a nearly 400-point drop. It rebounded some within the first hour of trading but then plunged more than 450 points. The Dow recovered again to close with a 276-point loss, or 1.6%. That marked the Dow's worst start to a calendar year since 2008, according to TheStreet.

The NASDAQ was almost as volatile, dropping more than 160 points at its weakest but finishing out with a 104-point loss, or 2.1%. The S&P 500 shed as much as 2.5% of its value at one point but closed at with a 1.5% loss.

Netflix shares felt the pinch of a downgrade from Baird Equity Research downgraded the stock to neutral from outperform and set a new price target of $115. Netflix was the best-performing stock in the S&P 500 in 2015, closing the year with a more than 130% gain. On Monday, shares closed at $109.96.

Other media stocks were dragged down by the plunge in the major indexes. AMC Networks and Time Warner bucked the downtrend to eke out sub-1% gains by day's end. Viacom, Comcast, Fox, CBS, Fox and Discovery were down in the 1%-3% range.