Early falls for New York shares

US shares opened 200 points lower on Friday, after official figures showed a sharper-than-expected fall in the number of new homes being built.

The Dow Jones industrial average recovered slightly to trade down 90 points or 1.0%.

European share indexes have fluctuated throughout the day and were trading higher by the early afternoon.

The FTSE 100 was up 2.6%, while Germany's Dax index was up 0.9% and France's Cac 40 had risen 1.8%.

It comes at the end of a week of rallies and slumps, unseen since the crash of 1987.

Rallies and slumps

Stock markets have been rising and falling all week as investors try to decide how severe the global economic downturn will be.

"This is the most volatile week we've seen," said Thierry Lacraz, strategist at Swiss bank Pictet in Geneva.

"The sole intelligent thing is to remain on the sidelines and not make any huge bets."

In his latest effort to reassure the markets, US President George W Bush told the US Chamber of Commerce it would take time for his administration's financial rescue plan to work.

"It took a while for the credit system to freeze up, it's going to take a while for the credit system to thaw," he said, adding that the rescue moves were "big enough and bold enough to work".

Among other developments:

Credit rating agency Fitch downgraded Hungary's outlook from "stable" to "negative" as it considered that the global financial crisis had increased the country's credit risk
The Prague stock exchange fell 10.2% to 842.8 points, its lowest point for four years
Oil prices rose above $72 a barrel on expectations that Opec would decide to cut production at its upcoming meeting
Share indexes in South Korea and Australia fell back slightly, though markets were relatively stable compared with recent gyrations
The Nikkei index climbed 235.37 points or 2.8% to end at 8,693.8, having lost more than 11% on Thursday
The Hang Seng in Hong Kong closed barely changed
German bank shares were helped by news that the German parliament had passed a 500bn euro ($672bn; £389bn) bank rescue package
Bombay's Sensex closed down 5.7% or 606.14 points at 9,975.35