Stocks tumble again after brief rebound from opening 700-point drop

— -- Stocks extended their devastating losses Friday as Wall Street headed toward its eighth straight day of losses over fears the global economy is set for a protracted recession.

The Dow Jones industrial average — already down 2,271 points in seven sessions — fell almost 700 points in the opening minutes of trading Friday, before buying sent the index briefly into positive territory and traders at the New York Stock exchange cheered. But the joy didn't last long.

The brief rally was ignited as computer-driven "buy" orders kicked in, but investors began selling heavily again as markets around the world panicked because credit markets remain mostly frozen, still posing a threat to the global economy.

In midday trading, the Dow was down 418.08, or 4.9%, to 8,161.11. At its low point Friday, the Dow was at 7,882.51, just 60 points above its low in Wall Street's last bear market, 7,286.27, reached Oct. 9, 2002.

Broader stock indicators also fell. The Standard & Poor's 500 index declined 50.14, or 5.5%, to 859.78, while the Nasdaq composite index fell 74.55, or 4.5%, 1,570.57.

Frozen credit markets and a loss of confidence in the world's financial system have caused the Dow Jones industrials to drop 21% in just 10 trading days. The blue chip index plunged 678 points Thursday, and is heading to its worst weekly point drop, and one of its biggest weekly percentage drops, since being created 112 years ago.

The selling had taken the Dow below the 8,000 level and the Standard & Poor's 500 index below 900.

Going into Friday's session, losses for the year add up to a staggering $8.3 trillion, according to preliminary figures measured by the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 Composite Index, which tracks 5,000 U.S.-based companies representing almost all stocks traded in the U.S.

"The U.S. and advanced economies' financial systems are now headed toward a near-term systemic financial meltdown...Day after day, stock markets are in free fall," New York University economist Nouriel Roubini wrote on his website. "We have a severe recession, a severe financial crisis and a severe banking crisis in advanced economies."

President Bush said Friday the government's efforts to rescue the financial sector was powerful enough to succeed but that it would take some time to be fully implemented.

His remarks came as finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven nations gathered Friday in Washington to discuss the economic meltdown. One of the potential remedies expected to be reviewed at the meeting is for governments to guarantee lending between banks.

Central banks around the world were forced to cut interest rates this week after continuing problems in the credit market triggered concerns that banks will run out of money. Analysts have described the mood on trading floors as panicked, with investors bailing out of stocks on fears there is no end in sight to the financial carnage.

Investors continue to shift money into safer investments, most of it going into the government bond market. The yield on the three-month Treasury bill plunged to 0.28% from 0.58% late Thursday. That suggests that demand for T-bills, regarded by investors as the safest assets around, remains high.

Longer-term Treasury yields moved higher as investors moved into shorter term issues. The yield on the benchmark 10-year note rose to 3.87% from 3.76% late Thursday.

The volatility in U.S. markets followed a global sell off as stocks plunged from Seoul to Singapore, and then across Europe, after an overnight sell-off in New York on Thursday.

European stocks sank, with Britain's FTSE-100 down 7.9%, German's DAX down 7.0%, and France's CAC-40 down 7.7%. In Asia, the collapse of Japan's Yamato Life Insurance caused already nervous investors to pull even more money out of the market — the Nikkei 225 fell 9.6%.

Trading on exchanges in Austria, Iceland, Romania and Ukraine was halted when losses mounted quickly. Russian regulators ordered Moscow exchanges, where trading has been suspended for two days, not to open as scheduled.

Driving the plunge: Concerns that a global financial crisis that has frozen lending between banks has now seeped across all sectors signaling a worldwide recession.

"We're not talking about fears of recession — recession is here," said Howard Wheeldon, senior strategist at BGC Partners, a London brokerage house. "The question's now how deep, how protracted it's going to be."

The trigger, Wheeldon said, was word Thursday that the credit rating of General Motors gm could be cut.

That led to a massive 7.3% plunge in the Dow Jones industrial average Thursday, with Asian and European investors quickly following suit as markets opened Friday.

"GM is a household name everywhere," Wheeldon said. "If GM is perceived to be in even worse trouble than it was, that's telling the markets this recession is going to be pretty awful."

Gloom from the markets here preceded a meeting by finance ministers and central bankers from the G-7 group of industrialized nations later today in Washington. They gather to try to address the global meltdown in the world's banking systems.

Many nations — including the United States, Britain and Russia — have jumped in in the last two weeks to bail out or prop up their major banks. Many nations haven't, however. And the efforts that have been taken haven't unfrozen lending between banks across the globe. Nor have they opened lending to industry and other businesses.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown Friday called on other governments to follow Britain's lead and come to the rescue of their struggling banks. Britain this week offered banks a $848 billion bailout. That came on top of a $700 billion U.S. plan signed last week by Bush.

Writing in The Times of London, Brown called for "a global solution" to the financial crisis and said world leaders should gather to devise a plan to restructure financial markets."Because this is a global problem, it requires a global solution," he said.

Tokyo's benchmark Nikkei index plummeted more than 9.6% and finished the week down 24%, twice what it lost during the week of the October 1987 stock market crash. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index lost 7.2%, Seoul's Kospi index nearly 4%, Singapore's Straits Times index more than 8%.

"There's too much uncertainty in the market," said Sherman Chan, economist with Moodys Economy.com in Sydney, Australia. "Confidence is really weak."

Morgan Stanley on Friday cut its estimate for Japan's economic growth this year by half to 0.4% and predicted that the Japanese economy would contract by 1% in 2009.

Stocks are collapsing despite a coordinated effort by central banks around the world to cut interest rates this week and flood markets with liquidity. "People have been speculating for weeks about a coordinated rate cut," Moodys Chan said. "Finally it comes, but too late."

The good news, Chan says: The rate cuts show that central bankers are finally committed to jump-starting stalled economies, instead of tightening credit to fight inflation. But panicked investors are looking for bold movies from policymakers in Europe and the United States, where the crisis began with a meltdown in the U.S. housing market, she said.

"It all goes back to the U.S. and Europe," Chan said. "If they slow, the rest of Asia will suffer... More needs to be done to kick-start the recovery process. We expect more turbulence."

In Japan, Kenji Akasaka, 69, president of a printing company, said he had never seen it this bad in the 40 years he has traded stocks. He said he invests mainly in blue-chips including Toyota and Nintendo — both of which have lost about half their value over the last year.

"I pray before I go to bed that the Dow will recover," said Akasaka, 69, as he scanned a monitor displaying the latest market levels. "I get sleepless, thinking about losses."

Stinson reported from London, Wiseman reported from Hong Kong. Contributing: wire reports