* Global markets sell off on credit, recession fears
* U.S. stock market to open at 5-year low
* General Electric's profit meets lower estimates
* President Bush to make statement on crisis
(Recasts first paragraph, adds details, byline, updates
prices)
By Ellis Mnyandu
NEW YORK, Oct 10 (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures fell
on Friday, indicating that Wall Street would extend the global
equity rout spurred by fears that tighter credit may send the
global economy into recession as the appetite for risk ebbs.
Investors unloaded stocks around the world, sending stock
markets in Asia and Europe into a tailspin, a day after Wall
Street sank for a seventh straight session.
General Electric <GE.N>, an economic bellwether and a Dow
component, posted a quarterly profit slide that matched its
recently cut forecast, underscoring the impact of the credit
crisis on the company's finance GE Capital arm. Shares of GE
were little changed in volatile trade before the bell. For more
see [].
Shares of Morgan Stanley <MS.N>, a securities firm turned
into a bank holding company, slid more than 6 percent to $11.64
after ratings agency Moody's warned it might cut the company's
long-term debt ratings and those of rival Goldman Sachs
<GS.N>.
Goldman Sachs shares were down nearly 4 percent at $97.50
before the bell.
"The panic and the fear we're seeing is mind blowing. It
looks like the market is pricing in a depression," said Matt
McCall, president of Penn Financial Group in Ridgewood, New
Jersey. "There's a lack of confidence in not only the global
economy but in the leaders as well."
S&P 500 futures <SPc1> dropped 20.50 points and were below
fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into
account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the
contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures <DJc1> slid 174
points, and Nasdaq 100 <NDc1> futures shed 14 points.
A pullback in the cost for banks to borrow overnight
dollars from or among each other tempered some market anxiety
but the cost to borrow dollars over three months shot higher
again, indicating credit markets effectively remain jammed up.
In Asia Japan's Nikkei <> tumbled 9.6 percent, while
in Europe major indexes traded down more than 7 percent.
U.S. President George W. Bush is due to make a statement to
reassure Americans that every action is being taken to
stabilize the financial system, at about 10 a.m. (1400 GMT).
U.S stocks plummeted for a seventh session on Thursday as
investors bet recent moves by authorities worldwide to thaw
frozen credit markets would not be enough to avert recession.
An avalanche of selling at the close left the Dow below
8,600 for the first time since May 2003, and down almost 40
percent from its record closing high hit exactly one year
earlier. The Nasdaq and the S&P 500 also fell to levels not
seen in more than five years.
(Editing by James Dalgleish)
