European and Asian stock markets mostly fell Tuesday after fresh worries about the fallout from the US subprime loan crisis battered Wall Street overnight.
"Markets are generally volatile at the moment," a Paris dealer noted.
London's FTSE 100 index of leading companies dropped 0.39 percent to 6,156.40 points in late morning trade. Frankfurt's DAX 30 lost 0.54 percent to 7,526.27 points and in Paris the CAC 40 shed 0.26 percent to 5,444.20 nearing the half-way mark.
The European single currency stood at 1.4850 dollars.
In London, Britain's third biggest bank Barclays jumped 4.12 percent to 517.5 pence after saying it expects in-line annual earnings, as robust growth in retail and business services offsets losses caused by the US housing crisis.
Earlier this month, Barclays announced hefty losses linked to the subprime mortgage debacle and consequent global credit crunch.
Barclays said its investment arm, Barclays Capital, took a 1.3-billion-pound (1.8-billion-euro, 2.7-billion-dollar) hit between the start of July and end of October but the liability was far less than had been feared by analysts.
Meanwhile Northern Rock, the embattled British lender set to be saved by British tycoon Richard Branson's Virgin Group, gained 4.81 percent to 115.4 pence.
The stock had jumped by more than 57 percent at one point on Monday, before ending with a gain of 28.17 percent to 110.10 pence.
In Asia on Tuesday, investors dumped shares as initial optimism about the outlook for the US holiday shopping season gave way to fresh jitters about the impact of recent credit market turmoil on major US banks.
Hong Kong shed 1.5 percent, Shanghai lost 2.0 percent, Sydney gave up 0.6 percent, Singapore fell by 1.5 percent and Taipei dropped 1.8 percent
Major markets had been as much as three percent in the red in early deals after Wall Street's Dow Jones index lost 1.8 percent on Monday.
"The market is full of uncertainty, which investors hate most," said Park Hyoung-Ryol, a fund manager for Consus Asset Management in Seoul.
"There might be additional subprime loan-related bombs from the US financial sector and the stock market will take a hit every time," said Park.
Bucking the trend, Tokyo was up 0.6 percent and Seoul added 0.2 percent as news of a 7.5 billion dollar investment in Citigroup by the Abu Dhabi government helped to ease some concerns about the credit market turmoil.
"The news on Citigroup, one of the most badly hit by the subprime mess, helped soothe the market to some extent," said NTT Smart Trade director Takashi Kudo in Tokyo.
Media reports had earlier said Citigroup was planning its second round of "large-scale" layoffs in under 12 months.
Meanwhile British bank HSBC announced it was readying up to 35 billion dollars to bail out two funds it manages.
There are fears still more bad news could come from global banks on their exposure to US subprime loans to risky American homebuyers amid a wave of mortgage defaults, said Matthew Kwok at Tanrich Securities in Hong Kong.
"It's hard to tell when the market will end the correction as overseas markets have not yet stabilised," he said.
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