LONDON, April 14: Asian stocks tumbled on Monday followed by losses across European and US markets on concern over company earnings and increasing gloom about prospects for the global economy, analysts said.

European exchanges closed lower while Wall Street wobbled in midday trade as Wachovia, one of America’s largest retail banking groups, announced a net loss of $350 million.

World stock markets fell on Monday “with investors coming to terms with General Electric’s profit miss (last Friday) and news on Wachovia Corp losses,” said Keith Bowman, equity analyst at Hargreaves Landsdown.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down a slight 0.10 per cent at 12,313.21 points by midday, after earlier making a brief foray into positive territory.

The Nasdaq composite was down 0.33 per cent to 2,282.69 while the broad-market Standard & Poor’s 500 index had retreated 0.20 per cent to 1330.19.

The biggest falls on Monday were in Asia, where Shanghai plunged by 5.62 per cent, Tokyo slid 3.05 per cent, Seoul closed 1.9 per cent lower and Sydney gave up 1.8 per cent. Hong Kong closed down 3.5 per cent as Singapore lost 2.3 per cent.

At the close of European trade on Monday, London’s FTSE 100 index of leading shares had fallen by 1.08 per cent to finish at 5,831.60.

In Paris the CAC 40 lost 0.66 per cent to close at 4,766.49 while in Frankfurt the Dax fell 0.74 per cent to 6,554.49 points.

Ministers from the Group of Seven rich countries ended a weekend summit with a communiqué that expressed concern about the global economic slowdown and credit crunch but outlined few concrete measures to tackle it.

Instead the finance chiefs from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States backed proposals to improve banking transparency and accounting to try to prevent a repeat of the worst financial crisis in decades.

“The G7 worked out measures that may contribute to the medium-term stability of the credit markets, but failed to offer anything that would have short-term effects,” said Shinko Securities market analyst Yutaka Miura.

Investors were meanwhile looking ahead to more earnings updates this week from major players in the US financial sector.—AFP