March 02, 2009

World stock markets tumbled Monday, with Japan's benchmark sinking 4 percent, as the worsening U.S. recession and more evidence of deep rot in the financial industry dashed hopes of a global recovery later this year.As in U.S., where Wall Street indexes retreated to 12-year lows, investors in Asia and Europe were shaken after figures Friday showed U.S. gross domestic product in the world's largest economy withered at a 6.2 percent annual pace at the end of last year.

The decline, worse than most economists had expected, was America's sharpest since 1982.Aggravating fears that the global economic crisis won't end anytime soon were signs that the world's financial firms, already infused with billions of dollars in government aid over the last year, need still more capital to make up for their colossal losses on bad assets.As trading opened in Europe, HSBC Holdings PLC, the region's largest bank by market value, announced it would raise $17.7 billion by issuing shares and cut 6,100 jobs in the U.S. after reporting a 70 percent drop in profits in 2008.