"It's not entirely obvious that these measures are turning
the tide. At the end of the day, if you socialize enough of the
financial system, it has to work." - David Mackie, head of
Western European economic research at JPMorgan

"This is not the bottom yet. We need to have more bad news
discounted in the marketplace, we need to officially hear we
are in a recession, we need to have better visibility on
company earnings and the credit market needs to show signs of
relief before things get better." - Keith Wirtz, chief
investment officer of Fifth Third Asset Management.

The stock sell-off led the Osaka Stock Exchange to trigger a circuit-breaker and briefly halt trade in the Nikkei futures.

"No one is buying. Fundamentals don't matter any more and there's no explanation for such a plunge," said Yoshinori Nagano, chief strategist at Daiwa Asset Management.

"Fears about the U.S. financial system have been rekindled. The U.S. government is still debating whether it would inject money into financial institutions. It needs to act now even if that would be beyond the current law."