Wall Street headed for another precipitous drop Friday as fears of a punishing global recession stirred panic among investors and sent world financial markets into a tailspin.
The Dow Jones industrial average futures were down 550 points, the maximum allowed price change. The drop triggered a freeze in selling.
The increasingly grim outlook convinced investors that the world economy is headed for a long and severe downturn despite a raft of government rescue efforts aimed at pulling the financial system from the brink.
Fearing more carnage in equity markets, big hedge funds and other institutional investors have been pulling out their money in a bid to reduce risk and raise cash.
World stock markets tumbled Friday on growing alarm that a global recession will ravage corporate profits.
European markets opened sharply lower, while Asian stocks finished in the red.
Most notable was Japan's Nikkei, which lost 9.6 percent to close under 8,000 for the first time since May of 2003.
Those losses were driven by a dismal earnings report from Sony and a falling dollar, which has sunk to a 13-year low against the yen. Sony watched its shares plunge more than 14 percent after slashing its earnings forecast.
One strategist in Hong Kong said, "The global crisis has come to Asia."
Jobs Lost On Wall Street
The fallout from the continued global credit crisis has claimed jobs on all corners of Wall Street, from hedge fund managers to floor traders. More than 110,000 have lost their jobs so far this year. Some industry experts forecast it could come close to 200,000 before the year is over.
Goldman Sachs Group, the world's biggest investment bank, made plans on Thursday to cut 3,200 positions from its staff of 32,000.
Barclays Capital is in the midst of purging 3,000 jobs as part of its takeover of Lehman Brothers, and Bank of America's acquisition of Merrill Lynch is likely to add thousands of additional cuts.
Michael Williams, dean of the graduate school of business at New York's Touro College, believes up to 250,000 financial workers could be without jobs by the second quarter of next year.
House Hearings To Continue
A House panel will focus Friday on how best to create jobs to help get the economy back on track.
Thousands of layoffs have been announced in the past few days, and the number of workers filing first-time claims last week for jobless benefits was higher than expected.
More than 2 million Americans have lost their jobs in the past year.
Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said it's going to get worse.
Friday's hearing will look at ways to create good-paying jobs, including rebuilding the nation's infrastructure.
The head of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the agency that backstops pensions for 44 million Americans, will also testify before the Labor Committee. The agency's financial problems may threaten the retirement security of millions of Americans.
OPEC To Cut Output
Meanwhile, OPEC oil ministers have decided to cut output by 1.5 million barrels a day as of next month in an attempt to shore up sagging prices.
The worldwide economic crisis has put a huge crimp in demand for crude and prices have fallen sharply from historic highs.
OPEC's statement says prices have witnessed a dramatic collapse unprecedented in speed and magnitude.
Crude oil rose in Asian trade Friday, while the dollar was down.
