TEXT OF STORY

Doug Krizner: Fear and greed, it’s that basic. Two primal emotions that govern the markets. For weeks, fear’s been winning and the markets are deeply distressed.

This was germinated by the crisis in the market for U.S. subprime mortgages and it’s grown to a full-blown global stock market sell-off.

Overnight in Asia, the markets were clobbered again. South Korea plunging 7 percent, its largest loss in five years. Japan’s Nikkei fell 2 percent and the market in Hong Kong was down by more than 3 percent.

In Europe at this hour, the major markets are all down more than 2 percent. All because of what happened yesterday on Wall Street.

The latest subprime shoe to drop was Countrywide Financial. Its shares fell 13 percent when Merrill Lynch raise more concern about Countrywide’s ability to borrow cash.

It’s hard to believe the Dow was at a record-high 14,000 just a month ago. Yesterday, a decline of 167 to 12,861. The S&P lost nearly 20 to 1,406. The NASDAQ was down 40 to 2,458.

Will the stress in the market produce a recession?

Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson told the Wall Street Journal the answer is no. He said the stress will “extract a penalty” on U.S. growth, but the global economy is very healthy.

Paulson also told the Journal the government shouldn’t guarantee market players against losses.