LONDON — International stock markets hemorrhaged hundreds of billions of dollars Monday as countries around the world scrambled to save their own banks and bolster whatever investor confidence remained.
Markets plunged in nations from Brazil to Saudi Arabia as some indexes saw their steepest drops in 20 years. Precipitous falls halted trading on several exchanges.
The Paris bourse fell 9%, Germany's main DAX index tumbled 7%, and the London FTSE 100 dropped 8%, losing the most points in a single day's trading in its history and wiping out more than $150 billion in value. Russian stocks plummeted nearly 20%.
Across Europe, governments have sought to contain the damage by guaranteeing deposits and cobbling together bailout packages for struggling financial institutions, including some of the biggest names in European banking. But those efforts failed to stem the flight from the markets.
"No bones about it, this is a whole lot worse and [more] scary than anything I've ever seen," said Peter Bickley, chief economist for the British arm of Germany's Deutsche Bank.
Even as countries around the globe blame the U.S. as the cause of the financial crisis, they are finding their own banks affected by and implicated in it.
But a coordinated defense, especially among the 27 members of the European Union, has proved elusive in spite of public pledges by leaders to unite against the most sweeping global financial threat in a generation.
Ireland's decision last week to back all deposits in its banks angered fellow EU states for its unilateralism but triggered a rush by other governments to do the same.
Greece quickly matched Ireland's plan, Germany made a similar promise Sunday, and Iceland -- which is not part of the EU but has been hit hard by the spiraling crisis -- followed suit Monday, declaring that it stood ready to take control of all the nation's commercial banks.
In Britain starting today, the government will insure bank deposits up to about $87,000, an increase from $61,000. The move was aimed in part at dissuading British savers from defecting to Irish banks.
"The destruction of global financial markets has intensified," Alistair Darling, Britain's chancellor of the exchequer, told Parliament on Monday. "People are rightly concerned about what is happening. We will do whatever necessary to maintain stability."
