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Recession fears see sharemarkets routed again |
Baja Real Estate News & Economy
 (CNN) -- Sharemarkets lost billions more in value Thursday as shares continued to slump on fears a global recession is unavoidable.
Stocks in Europe, Asia and the U.S. suffered more heavy declines for the second day running as economic data on spending, jobs and production indicated growth had come to an abrupt halt.
Figures revealed industrial production in the U.S. suffered its sharpest fall in 34 years last month, Germany cut its growth forecast for 2009 by a percent to only 0.2 percent, a World Bank official warned China's spectacular growth would also be hit and Japan's Prime Minister Taro Aso suggested the U.S.'s $700 billion banking bailout was not enough.
Markets in Asia, unnerved by the Dow Jones's eight percent ($1 trillion) fall Wednesday, continued the downward slide.
Japan's Nikkei fell more than 11 percent, its worst loss in two decades, and South Korea's KOSPI index closed down 9.4 percent. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index finished the day down 5.11 percent, at 15,180.02 , while Australia's All Ordinaries index and Singapore's Straits Times index both fell 6.7 percent.
In Europe London's FTSE and Frankfurt's DAX were close to five percent lower, while Paris's CAC-40 was down more than six percent.
The Dow Jones opened up, but quickly found itself hovering around 300 points in the red.
Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso blamed the renewed drop in markets, which had rebounded earlier this week, on investor concerns that the U.S. government's $700 billion bank bailout was insufficient, The Associated Press reported.
"Since it was insufficient, the market is again falling sharply," Aso told lawmakers. He did not elaborate.
Meanwhile, European Union leaders meeting for a two-day summit said Thursday they had agreed on the need for coordinated economic policies to deal with current and future financial crises.
At the meeting in Brussels, the 27 EU member states agreed to back plans put forth last weekend by a smaller group of European nations to shore up troubled banks.
That plan would refinance banks, guarantee interbank lending, and ensure that distressed banks do not fail. It also will protect individual depositors' accounts and ease some regulations to give banks more flexibility.
The plan was agreed to by the 15 members of the Eurozone, those countries that use the euro currency. Eurozone leaders presented the plan to the summit Wednesday.
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