Stock markets plunge across world

If you're living anywhere apart from a remote glacier in Iceland, this is one opportunity for you to have a sordid and depressing Friday night.

Global share markets fell like a hippo strapped to an asteroid amid investors' widening fears of a sustained worldwide economic recession. Wall Street tumbled faster than Jack on the hill in morning trading, and markets across Europe and Asia followed suit.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell nearly 3%, paring early losses while the hi-tech Nasdaq index declined by more than 2 percent. On European markets, London closed 5% lower, Frankfurt slid more than 5% and Paris was down more than 3.5%.

Investors have been dumping shares worldwide because of gloomy prospects for the global economy - and are looking at other forms of investment. Global money markets have showed renewed signs of stress, despite the billions of dollars that central banks and governments have pumped into the markets in recent weeks.

Investors worldwide are worried about falling share prices and the possibility of companies defaulting on their debts.

"You are seeing the currencies move as they would in any sort of full-fledged panic," said Firas Askari, at BMO Capital Markets in Toronto, "I think we have to be close to the end of this awful cycle. It's usually darkest at the bottom."

Roadside Romeo may not just be an animated movie after all. Very harsh pun indeed.