An electronic board on King Street in Toronto on Friday afternoon shows the TSX recovered from its earlier losses.An electronic board on King Street in Toronto on Friday afternoon shows the TSX recovered from its earlier losses. (Robin Rowland/CBC)

The Toronto and New York stock markets clawed back some ground they lost at the opening Friday, but their benchmark indexes still ended the day lower.

Deepening gloom about failing economies around the world spooked investors, with the S&P/TSX composite index falling as much as 697 points. At the close, it was down 37 points to 9,294.

Top 5 TSX drops (by points)
Rank: Date: Drop: Index value:
1 Sept. 29, 2008 840.93 11,285.07
2 Oct. 25, 2000 840.26 9,511.84
3 Oct. 2, 2008 813.97 10,900.54
4 Oct. 15, 2008 631.81 9,323.85
5 Jan. 21, 2008 604.99 12,132.13
(Source: TSX)

New York markets also fell sharply as many speculated the world is headed for a long and severe economic downturn, despite government efforts to stabilize the financial system.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 312 points at 8,379. Before the start of trading, Dow futures were frozen after falling 550 points, their maximum allowable downward limit. The Nasdaq ended the day down 52 points at 1,552.

European markets were also lower, with Britain's FTSE 100 index losing 5 per cent, Germany's Dax falling 4.96 per cent and France's CAC 40 dropping 3.54 per cent.

In Asia, Japan's Nikkei lost 9.6 per cent, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell 8.3 per cent.

Bank and insurance stocks led the losers in Toronto, but the energy sector was also down as the price of oil fell $3.68 to settle at $64.15 US a barrel despite a cut in production by OPEC.

An electronic board shows the Toronto and New York stock market indexes after the close of trading Friday.An electronic board shows the Toronto and New York stock market indexes after the close of trading Friday. (Robin Rowland/CBC)

The Canadian dollar lost 0.93 cent to 78.71 cents U.S., down from 84 cents at the start of the week and 94 cents at the start of October.

One money manager was discouraging investors from getting into stocks at this time.

"Wait this out until you see a clear uptrend," Paul Thornton of Global Maxfin Capital told CBC News.

"It doesn't pay to assume that this is the time to step in and be buying even though it might seem compelling," he said.

"There's no new catalyst in terms of failures or anything like that; it's just this growing unrest and we're seeing a continuation of panic selling that has pervaded this market now for weeks," said Andrew Pyle, an investment adviser with ScotiaMcLeod.

With files from the Canadian Press