Stock markets across Asia dropped Monday amid fears that government bank bailouts in the U.S. and Europe will not be enough to stop the U.S. economic crisis from spreading across the globe.

Here at home, Sun Life Financial Inc. today announced the sale of its 37% interest in the CI Financial Income Fund to the Bank of Nova Scotia for $2.3 billion in cash.

In Asia, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index dropped to its lowest level in four and a half years, plunging 4.25% to 10,473.09.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index edged down 4.3% to 16,927.87. Markets in China, Australia, South Korea, India, Singapore and Thailand dropped significantly as well.

The drop in Asian markets comes a day after Germany announced on Sunday that it will spend US$69 billion (50 billion euros) to bail out Hypo Real Estate AG, the country’s second most important commercial property lender.

In Europe, the UK’s FTSE 100 fell 4.42% to 4,760.14 in morning trade, led by declines in the banking industry.

Germany’s DAX index fell 4.22% to 5,552.27. France’s CAC-40 index dropped 4.85% to 3,882.81.

Light sweet crude for November delivery was down US$3.93 to US$89.95 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange on speculation that the spreading financial crisis will exacerbate a global economic slowdown and cut demand for crude oil.

Significant gains by the U.S. dollar against the euro also contributed to the slump in oil prices.

The Canadian dollar opened at US92.08¢, down 0.38 of cent from Friday.

In today’s earnings news, Jean Coutu Group reported a second-quarter net loss of $39.1 million, dragged down by its holding in American drugstore chain Rite Aid Corp.

Excluding one-time items and Coutu’s $73.1-million share of Rite Aid’s loss, the pharmacy chain said it earned $34.2 million, or 14¢ a share in the quarter ended Aug. 30, up by $1 million from a year earlier.

Toronto stocks ended lower Friday, after rallying early in the session, as the market greeted news that the U.S. House of Representatives had passed the Wall Street bank bailout bill with a late afternoon selloff.

Ending one of the most tumultuous weeks in the senior exchange’s history, the S&P/TSX composite index dropped 97.19, or 0.89%, to close at 10,803.35. The market hit a high of 11,356.37 early in the session.

The Toronto market, which saw two 800-plus single-day point drops during the week, closed down 1,322.65 points on the week, a drop of 10.9%.

The S&P/TSX Venture Exchange fell 11.73, or 0.89%, to 1,300.23.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 157.47, or 1.5%, to 10,325.38, investors remained nervous about whether the US$700 billion bailout to embattled Wall Street banks would work in the face of mounting evidence that the U.S. economy is weakening.

The S&P 500 fell 15.05 points, or 1.35%, to 1,099.23, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index gave up 29.33, or 1.48%, to 1,947.39.

The U.S. Labour Department said Friday that 159,000 jobs in the U.S. were lost in September. It was reportedly the largest one-month loss in more than five years.