European, Asian stocks battered by U.S. regional bank worries- MarketWatch

Where Wall Street goes, the rest of the world tends to follow and that was the case for Friday as a U.S. selloff spread to Asia and Europe. The Hong Kong Hang Seng index slid 641 points, or 1.4%, to 25,247 with the Nikkei 225 index dropping nearly 700 points, or 1.4%, to 47,582. In Hong Kong, financials such as China Life Insurance slid over 5%, but losses were spread across sectors, with technology shares also hard hit -- Alibaba fell over 4%. In Japan, banks also came under pressure, with Mizuho Financial down over 4% and Softbank losing over 3%. The Stoxx Europe 600 dropped 1.7%, with the German DAX 30 out in front with a 2.2% drop. Deutsche Bank shares fell over 5% and insurer Aegon was down over 5%. German stocks were getting a double hit as defense shares fell amid news that President Donald Trump is planning for a second meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in an attempt to end the war in Ukraine. Shares of Rheinmetall slumped 5%. Bank news was prominent in Spain where BBVA failed in its attempted takeover of Banco de Sabadell, shares of the latter fell 6.7%, while BBVA shares slipped 0.5%. The financials heavy FTSE 100 index fell 1.6%, with shares of Barclays dropping 5.8% and Standard Chartered down over 4.8%.