LONDON — European stocks slumped and the euro hit a new four-year dollar low point on Tuesday on concern eurozone banks may have more skeletons to show in their balance sheets. But the dollar rose on its status as a safe-haven from jitters over Israel's deadly Gaza ship raid. Shares suffered a fierce sell-off after the European Central Bank warned on Monday of possible new bank writedowns, added to chronic concerns about the region's debt and deficit crisis. Markets were also rattled by fresh data which indicated that China's economy could be slowing down, raising concerns for the global recovery. In late morning trading, London lost 2.19 percent, with BP shares plunging after the oil giant's latest attempt to fix the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster failed. The Frankfurt market fell 1.72 percent while Paris shed 2.46 percent in value. Madrid's stock market, which has suffered heavy losses recently over concerns about Spain's debt and the country's embattled savings banks, tumbled 3.20 percent. In foreign exchange trading on Tuesday, the euro slid to 1.2111 dollars -- touching a level last seen on April 14, 2006. It later pulled back to 1.2140, down from 1.2305 late in New York on Monday. Banks led the way lower after the European Central Bank had suggested on Monday that eurozone banks might have to reduce the value of their assets by a total of 195 billion euros (240 billion dollars) by 2011. "Nothing but bad news continues for the eurozone," IG Index analyst David Jones told AFP. "There was that ECB report saying that banks will need to write down even more in bad debts this year than last year." Sentiment was also hurt by a move by credit rating agency Fitch on Friday to downgrade Spain's rating one notch from the maximum AAA to AA+ owing to the country's poor growth prospects. Jones added that the US dollar was also benefiting from its safe haven status after Israel's deadly navy raid on an international aid convoy heading for Gaza. "The raid on the Gaza-bound ships by Israel over the weekend has ratcheted up once again the nerves of international investors which were already on edge following increased tensions between North and South Korea," said Jones. "With sentiment in financial markets already fragile, it is not too surprising to see the US dollar one of the assets benefitting this morning as investors look for a perceived safe haven for their funds." The dollar is regarded by many investors as a safe bet in times of geopolitical uncertainty. In London, shares in British energy giant BP nosedived 15.49 percent to 418.15 pence after its latest setback trying to plug the spilling undersea oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. One rare stock to make gains in Europe was British insurer Prudential which gained 4.25 percent to 564.06 pence after investors welcomed a major setback to its huge takeover of US insurer AIG's Asian unit AIA. However, Asian markets also sank on Tuesday after official data showed China's purchasing managers index (PMI) had slipped in May to 53.9 from 55.7 in April. A separate PMI study by HSBC revealed a drop to 52.7 from a revised 55.2 the previous month. A reading above 50 means the sector is expanding, while below 50 indicates an overall decline. The Hong Kong stock market tumbled 1.36 percent, Tokyo's Nikkei fell 0.58 percent and Shanghai shed 0.92 percent. The figures follow a number of measures announced by Beijing aimed at cooling the country's blistering growth -- it expanded 11.9 percent in the March quarter -- including tightening lending by banks. "Investors around the globe still look to China to lead the global recovery and whenever there's a bit of poor economic data from them it usually leads to a sell-off in equities," said Capital Spreads analyst Simon Denham. A slowdown in China would have a massive impact on Asian markets as the country is a major export destination for several regional economies which rely on its voracious appetite to help their recovery. Lingering concerns that China would unveil more measures to tighten credit have weighed on Shanghai stocks for several weeks.

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