(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-01-22 21:11

New York -- Wall Street was expected to plunge at the opening of trading Tuesday, extending its huge losses from last week and taking more cues from heavy selling that has spread throughout the world.

Indicators showed the Dow Jones industrial average was set to fall by more than 500 points when trading begins.

Fears of a recession in the United States that could pull down the global economy as well have infected markets around the world, and those declines further unnerved US investors who were unable to trade Monday, when Wall Street was closed for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Dow futures fell 553, or 4.57 percent, to 11,553. Standard & Poor's 500 index futures fell 67.20, or 5.07 percent, to 1,258.10. Nasdaq 100 index futures dropped 86.50, or 4.68 percent, to 1,763.00.

In Asia, Japan's Nikkei stock average closed down 5.65 percent -- its biggest percentage drop in nearly a decade. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index lost 8.65 percent a day after showing its biggest losses since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

In afternoon trading, Britain's FTSE 100 fell 0.69 percent, Germany's DAX index lost 2.55 percent and, France's CAC-40 fell 1.39 percent.

Some of the more modest moves in major global indexes Tuesday belie the huge drops many saw Monday.

A big question on investors' minds is whether the US Federal Reserve, scheduled to meet next week, will make an emergency interest rate cut before then. Traders outside the US were pondering whether other central banks would step in with interest-rate cuts to help shore up market sentiment.

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