Stock prices plummeted worldwide and demand for safe-haven bonds and currencies climbed as investors worried that a weakening U.S. economy would drag others down with it, Reuters reported.

MSCI’s main world stock index, a benchmark gauge of stock markets globally, fell 2.6 percent, dropping below its 2007 bottom to levels last seen in December 2006. Its emerging market equities counterpart lost more than 5 percent. Meanwhile, the spread between emerging market bond yields and U.S. Treasury yields, a key gauge of risk appetite, was just off its widest in two years.

U.S. stock markets were closed on Monday for a holiday, but U.S. stock index futures were down, implying investors were not counting on Wall Street to rebound when trading opens tomorrow.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 decreased 4.2 percent, taking its 2008 year-to-date losses to more than 13 percent. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei average earlier lost 3.86 percent to close at a two-year low, and MSCI’s main emerging market stocks benchmark was down 3.9 percent.