World Markets Sinking

Get ready for another wild ride. Asian markets recouped some of their losses after scary declines early today, but European stocks were being buffeted a day after US markets suffered their biggest drop since 2008. By mid-morning London time, Germany's DAX was down 5.6%, France's CAC-40 had dropped 3.5% and the leading index of British stocks was down 4.1%. It was the eighth straight day European stocks have fallen, the longest losing streak since 2003, notes Bloomberg. US stocks were poised for more dips as Standard & Poor's 500 Index futures slipped .6%.

"It's still very hard to predict how the US market will do," one analyst told AP. "When the dust settles, if the situation doesn't get worse in the US or Europe, the situation will rebound. But the US has to stabilize. Another analyst told the BBC: "You can't control it. You have the onset of fear in the market." There's "probably as much uncertainty as we've seen since 2008," said another analyst. "There's a feeling that fiscal austerity is coming at the worst possible time." (More stock market stories.)