Stocks fall, China faces rising defaults

Stocks fell on Wednesday.

The S&P 500 fell 0.6 percent, the STOXX Europe 600 tumbled 1.1 percent and the Shanghai Composite Index slipped 0.1 percent.

The yield on the US 10-year Treasury note fell to 1.786 percent from 1.800 percent on Tuesday.

"The continued narrative is that the global economy is not very strong, even if the US is the best of the bunch," said Joe Bell, a senior equity analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research.

While Chinese stocks held up relatively well on Wednesday, China is at risk of seeing a rise in defaults as corporate borrowers face a record 3.7 trillion yuan of local bond maturities through year-end.