Nikkei plunges to 26-year low

 Shares in Japan have plunged to their lowest level in more than a quarter of a century in another brutal day for Asian stocks.

In Tokyo the benchmark Nikkei index closed Monday's trade down 6.36 per cent, to end the day at its worst closing level since October 1982. The index has lost more than 20 per cent since last Monday and nearly 40 per cent in the last month along. The broader Topix index of Japanese shares posted an even steeper fall of 7.4 per cent. In Europe markets followed the Asian lead, all opening Monday's trading day sharply down with London's benchmark index down 4.4 per cent.

Volatile: The closing numbers in Asia capped a volatile day, with the Nikkei at one point on Monday morning trading up 3 per cent, before plunging once again. Earlier moves by Taro Aso, the Japanese prime minister, to introduce measures to calm volatile stock markets failed to revive flagging sentiment.

During an emergency meeting of the Japanese cabinet on Monday, Aso called for steps including tighter controls on short-selling and expanding a government fund to recapitalise banks to as much as 10 trillion yen ($106.1 billion) from 2 trillion yen, Kyodo news agency reported. In a further sign of the impact of the global economic slowdown, Japanese consumer electronics giant Canon said it was lowering its net profit forecast for 2008 by 25 per cent, due to the global slowdown and the strengthening of the yen.

In a statement the company said that the sharp recent falls on global markets had "increased concern over the impact to the real economy." "Additionally, drastic fluctuations in exchange rates between major currencies have led to a heightened sense of uncertainty over the future," it said. On Monday a surprise statement from the Group of Seven (G7) leading industrialised nations hinted at further intervention, saying its members would cooperate to aid stability. But that appeared to do little to immediately boost investor confidence.

Manila stocks dive: Elsewhere in Asia markets in Hong Kong, Australia and the Philippines also slid dramatically, with the Manila stock exchange at one point suspending trading for 15 minutes as circuit-breakers cut in when the market lost more than 10 per cent. Philippine shares eventually ended the day down by 12.3 per cent, its lowest close since September 2004. "This is the loss of confidence in the market," Emmanuel Soller, broker at EquitiWorld Securities Inc. in Manila, told the Associated Press.

"Our fundamentals were ignored, we followed the US. But I believe there was an overreaction by investors." In Hong Kong the Hang Seng index was down more than 12 per cent in late afternoon trade as investors continued to desert the market. In South Korea meanwhile stocks went on a rollercoaster ride as the Bank of Korea announced it was slashing its key interest rate by three-quarters of a per cent, its biggest-ever rate cut. That gave the market a brief shot in the arm, rising for the first time in a week and at one point trading up 2.9 per cent. But investor nerves kept the market in flux and at one point the benchmark Kospi index was down by as much as five per cent. At the close of trade shares had managed to regain some ground, with the Kospi up 0.8 per cent.