Stocks Tumble as Debt Woes Spurs Electronic Rout; Euro Climbs

U.S. stocks tumbled the most in a year as waves of computerized trading exacerbated a selloff triggered by Europe’s debt crisis, sparking a slide in Asian shares. U.S. index futures stabilized and the euro climbed.

The rout briefly erased more than $1 trillion in U.S. market value as the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell almost 1,000 points, a 9.2 percent plunge that was the biggest intraday percentage loss since 1987 and largest point drop ever, before paring declines. Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index tumbled 3.5 percent as of 2:47 p.m. in Tokyo and the MSCI Asia Pacific Index slumped 1.9 percent.

Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures fell 0.4 percent, having earlier gained 0.7 percent, and the euro strengthened 2 percent against the yen after Japanese Finance Minister Naoto Kan said the Group of Seven plans to hold a conference call to discuss the Greek debt crisis.     “People are selling in a panic,” said Hisakazu Amano, who helps oversee the equivalent of $22 billion at T&D Asset Management Co. in Tokyo. “Investors will put money back into risk assets when the Greece issues cool down.”

Stocks got pummeled amid concerns European leaders won’t do enough to keep the most indebted nations from defaulting. The losses snowballed as computerized trades sent to electronic networks caused some stocks to briefly drop more than 90 percent of their value. Procter & Gamble Co., the world’s biggest consumer products company, fell as much as 37 percent before recovering all but 2.3 percent of its decline. >>