US markets recover, but investors jittery

A day after a 512-point plunge of the Dow Jones industrial average, Wall Street stocks recovered from losses of more than 2 percent to trade mostly higher in the afternoon.

The MSCI's All-Country World Index pared its losses, but was still down 1 percent on the day. What you had was a crisis-of-confidence move down, unjustified by the fundamentals, said Jeffrey Saut, chief investment strategist of Raymond James Financial, in St. Petersburg, Florida. It's like pushing down on a spring. You can only press down so far.

World leaders moved to address the turmoil, which has been driven by fears the global economy is slipping back into recession and by the inability of policymakers in Europe to extinguish the debt crisis engulfing the region.

China and Japan called for global cooperation. French President Nicolas Sarkozy was due to discuss the financial markets with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega said the world economy is in a situation of stress and South American nations must work together to create mechanisms to protect their economies from turmoil.

News of stronger-than-expected US jobs growth in July relieved some of the financial markets' worst fears, but that was not enough to spur sustained buying after an early bounce.

The

... contd.