(1888PressRelease)
March 11, 2008 - Downbeat figures from the US Mortgage Bankers Association have sent ripples around the world's financial markets and Asian shares have fallen sharply.
Following the report that indicated a record number of home repossessions in the world's largest economy India's Sensex index lost five per cent while Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 index closed 3.3 per cent lower and the Topix index declined three per cent.
Further fuelling fears of a recession, data from the US Federal Reserve showed that American citizens' debt was higher than their equity for the first time in more than 50 years.
"There are still serious concerns about credit markets, particularly about where the US economy is heading," Tony Russell, senior equities adviser at ABN AMRO Morgans in Australia told the BBC.
"We're probably close to re-testing our lows seen earlier this year."
In addition there has been further writedowns for investment firms on the back of the US subprime crisis.
Belgium's largest financial services firm Fortis $2.3 billion in writedowns.
It is thought the collapse in subprime mortgages has so far caused at least $181 billion of writedowns and credit losses worldwide.
Pessimistically, Roger Nightingale at Pointon York in London, told Bloomberg the bad news "is not all out there".
"It looks as if the problems are deepening and widening. The amount of money in the hands of investors is contracting."
Further analysis of the world economy could be supplied by Aranca, an end-to-end provider of on-demand, custom investment, business and economic research.
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