Sydney - Australian stocks rallied at the bell on Monday after a horror trading session at the end of last week saw them slip to a five-year low.

In early trading, the ASX 200 gained 221 points, or 5.5 per cent, to 4,182 to break the 4,000 barrier.

Commsec economist Craig James said bargain hunting would buoy the market following Friday's 8.3-per-cent crash, the biggest drop since 1987.

The 30 share index, Sensex lost 1,998.47 points during in the week ended Oct 10, while the broad based NSE Nifty plunged 538.35 points in the same period.

Mid-cap stocks dropped 1,001.8 points to 3,676 in the week. On the other hand, small-cap shares slipped 1,109.95 points to 4,355.45 during the week.

The markets, all through the week, remained under huge pressure because of turmoil in worldwide markets. 

For the month of August 2008, India’s Index of Industrial Production (IIP) index decline to 1.3% as against 7.1% on m-o-m basis. 

The US stocks continued to fall on a sixth consecutive day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 189.01 points (2.00 percent) and closed at 9,258.10. The Dow Jones has witnessed a downfall of 30 percent so far. The shares of Bank of America dropped to 7 percent after selling shares at a discount. The largest US aluminum producer, Alcoa also witnessed a decline of 12 percent in its stocks.

The Indian stock market crashed on Friday (Oct 10) by losing more than 800 points at close. 

The markets remained under huge pressure throughout the day because of turmoil in worldwide markets. Sharp fall in rupee and poor IIP numbers also dragged the Sensex down. 

Technology giant Infosys was down despite better-than-expected quarterly figures. 

RBI and government are taking all possible steps to improve liquidity situation in the Indian market. 

Washington - President George W Bush sought to assure the world that the US government was doing all it could to keep the world's largest economy afloat as global stocks were in free-fall on Friday.

Bush said a "startling" drop in US stocks in the last few days was being "driven by uncertainty and fear," and insisted the US already had all the tools necessary to resolve the financial crisis.

Sao Paulo  - Trading was suspended Friday on the Sao Paulo Stock Exchange, after the leading index Bovespa plunged more than 10 per cent about an hour after opening.

The 10.1 per cent drop in share prices recorded at 10:35 am (1335 GMT) activated an automatic circuit breaker, triggered when stocks drop below a certain level and automatically suspending trading for half an hour.

On Friday morning, the Bovespa index - which had neared 74,000 in May - was on 33,308.08.