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Share prices slumped Thursday in Europe and Asia amid concern about the health of the U.S. economy and corporate earnings.
Economists and analysts said investors, shaken by a raft of corporate accounting scandals, were braced for more bad news from the United States.
"The markets are going through a period of major uncertainty and fear," said David Page, an economist at Investech Bank in London. "Confidence is ebbing on a daily basis, and though we will probably see some bounces on the way down we would not be surprised if the market fell off even from these levels."
Paris's blue-chip CAC 40 traded down 1.7 percent at 3,593.32 in the early afternoon, while Britain's FTSE 100 was down 1.8 percent at 4,338.70, having recovered from deeper losses in the morning. In Germany, the DAX index was down 0.6 percent at 4,165.49.
Earlier in the day, stock markets wilted in Asia. The key markets indicators fell 2.5 percent in Tokyo, 1.8 percent in Hong Kong and 3.8 percent in South Korea.
Falling U.S. markets affect their counterparts in Europe and Asia because of worries that a decline on Wall Street will hurt consumer confidence and make Americans more cautious about spending - bad news for companies exporting to the United States.
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