Stocks slide on recession fears

Global stocks fell again today as fears of a possible US recession combined with worries over Europe’s debt crisis.

However, a better than anticipated opening on Wall Street helped European markets recoup a large chunk of their earlier losses.

“This week has seen a continuation of the trend of weaker than expected data and political reaction to the European problems which pretty much amounts to ’Let’s have a get together a couple of times a year,’ ” said Gary Jenkins, an analyst at Evolution Securities.“

Britain’s FTSE 100 lost 0.7 % to 5,056, while Germany’s DAX fell 2.1 % to 5,483. France’s CAC-40 was down 1.2 % at 3,041.

In the US, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 0.6 % at 10,931 while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 0.1 % at 1,140. Futures markets had been predicting far bigger declines earlier.

The market turmoil of the last two days has dashed any hopes of a quiet second half of August – a normally quiet period when trading dries up until the US returns from the Labour Day holiday in early September.

Financial markets have wrestled for several weeks with fears that a new recession in the US is in the offing. Another round of soft economic data further spooked investors all round the world.

A woeful manufacturing survey from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia renewed US recession fears in particular.

A parallel concern centres on Europe after a Franco-German summit earlier this week failed to persuade investors a convincing fix to the spiralling debt crisis was imminent.

The leaders promised further economic integration but no concrete measures like eurobonds, which would spread the risk among the 17 nations using the common currency.

Banks have borne the brunt of the selling in the markets on renewed worries of the health of the continent’s banks, while safe-haven gold prices nudged up against the 2,000 dollars an ounce mark, and crude prices fell as investors feared a global slowdown will slash demand for crude.

Europe’s banks have also been hit by indications from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy that their countries were developing a plan to tax financial transactions.

In an effort to smooth out that turbulence, France’s stock market regulator put in place a ban on short-selling last week, preventing traders from betting on the decline in a share’s price. Other European regulators have instituted similar bans.

But on Thursday the Authorite des Marches Financiers eased the ban, saying it would allow traders to roll over – or extend – their short positions when they expired. It will continue to bar them from taking on new ones.

One moderately bright spot for European policymakers remains the relative calm in the bond markets after the European Central Bank started buying up Italian and Spanish bonds. Both countries’ yields on their ten-year bonds have fallen over a percentage point to below 5 %, which is considered manageable.

There’s also been some calm in the currency markets, with the euro up 0.9 % at 1.4423 dollars and the dollar down 0.4 % at 76.45 yen.

Earlier, Asian shares also took a beating following the big retreat in Europe and the US

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index dropped 2.5 % to 8,719.24 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slid 3.1 % to 19,399.92.

Mainland Chinese shares tracked losses elsewhere, with shares in coal, oil and cement leading the decline. The Shanghai Composite Index lost 1 % to 2,534.36 after dipping almost 2 % earlier in the day. The Shenzhen Composite Index lost 0.8 % to 1,133.84.

Oil prices continued to tank too amid fears over global demand. Benchmark oil for September delivery was down 1.43 dollars to 80.95 dollars a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.