Stock markets across the world fell dramatically this week on worries that recent government moves might not prevent a global recession. The largest drop was with the Dow Jones (DJIA), which fell 678 points or more than 7.3% to below 9,000, closing at 8,579.19. The index fell over 2,000 points in the past nine days to reach its lowest level since 2003. The S&P 500 was down more than 7%.
The U.S. markets opened on the positive side, but with bad news coming from several different areas such as uncertainty over whether the 700 billion USD bank bailout bill passed by the United States House of Representatives and the Senate will be effective. Concerns over the lack of trading within the credit market was a primary cause of the drop.
This was the seventh straight day of markets closing in severely negative numbers.
One of the biggest stocks to drop was General Motors, which lost more than 33% of its value.
In the UK, the FTSE 100 dropped from a day high of 145 points to 52.9 points lower, at a 4 year low. The biggest drop was Barclays, which dropped 13.1%.
The only major world indexes that gained any value were the Hang Seng in Hong Kong, which closed up 511.51 points or 3.31%, and the Russian RTS, which partly recovered from yesterday's fall with a 10.91% increase.
"Markets are still sceptic with regards to the international coordination to face the problems of the financial system," explained Barclays Capital economists, and they predicted stocks would continue to be volatile.
Investors are awaiting the outcome of several meetings that will be held this weekend. Finance ministers from the G7 will be gathering in Washington, and the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank will be holding their autumn meetings.
In response to the financial tsunami, the European Central Bank (ECB) opened an unlimited emergency credit line on Thursday to stimulate liquidity in the institutions that are facing bankruptcy. Through six-day credits, the ECB plans to financially aid the 15 countries which are part of the Eurozone. Furthermore, it injected $100 billion dollars into the market, duplicating the figure it had originally offered.
Iceland nationalized Kaupthing Bank, the most important bank in the country. The Nordic state – whose economy is highly dependent on the banking system – is having great financial problems after the government nationalized the three most important banks, and could face bankruptcy.
Central banks in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico also decided to intervene in the market to stop the rapid devaluation of their currencies, fearing a capital flight out.
Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel did not rule out nationalizing banks.

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Markets down across the world; Dow Jones falls below 9,000