Tony Munroe and Jason Neely
Reuters
September 30, 2008
Bank rescues spread in Europe on Tuesday after U.S. lawmakers’ unexpected rejection of a $700 billion bailout.
France joined Belgium and Luxembourg in a 6.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy began talks on the crisis with finance executives on Tuesday and has said he will meet this week with officials from Europe’s G8 member states — Germany, France, Britain and Italy.
“Market meltdown is likely to continue unless an alternative (U.S.) plan is passed, which may or may not happen this week,” Dariusz Kowalczyk, chief strategist at CFC Seymour in Hong Kong, said in a note.
Facing the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, global central banks scrambled again to try to relieve a severe squeeze in money markets by more than doubling the amount of dollar funding to $620 billion.
Among European banks top losers were Royal Bank of Scotland, Britain’s HBOS, and Italy’s UniCredit.
Bans on short-selling stocks spread to Russia, South Korea and Taiwan. Nervous investors piled into gold and U.S. Treasuries. Oil fell on fears of further economic slowdown, and the Japanese yen hit a 4-month high.
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