WASHINGTON (AP) – The president’s top economic advisers are pledging to work with their counterparts around the world to restore confidence and stability to financial markets.

The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets said in a statement Monday it planned to quickly implement the expanded authorities granted to federal regulators by the $700 billion rescue package passed on Friday. The working group was formed after the 1987 stock market crash.

The group, which includes Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, said it planned to move “with substantial force on a number of fronts.”

NEW YORK (AP) – Wall Street is plunging, with the Dow Jones industrials down more than 500 points amid growing fears that the credit crisis is spreading around the world.

Investors are realizing that the Bush administration’s $700 billion rescue plan won’t work quickly to unfreeze credit markets, and many banks are still having difficulty gaining access to cash. European governments also took steps over the weekend to limit the damage from the growing global financial crisis.

The Federal Reserve also took fresh steps to help ease credit markets Monday.

The Dow is down more than 570 points at the 9,747 level.

LONDON (AP) – Asian and European stock markets plunged Monday as government bank bailouts in the U.S. and Europe failed to alleviate fears that the global financial crisis would depress world economic growth.

Investors took scant comfort from Washington’s passage on Friday of a US$700 billion rescue plan for banks, both because of the uncertainty hanging over the details of the deal and the degree to which it will help. In Europe, more bank bailouts in Germany and Belgium fed investors’ fear.

By midafternoon Europe time, Britain’s benchmark stock index, the FTSE 100, lost 245.70 to 4,734.55 — a 4.93 percent fall. The declines were led by the banking industry, with the mining and oil industries also suffering drops. HBOS PLC’s share price dropped 13.4 percent, while the Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC fell 14.6 percent.

Germany’s DAX index fell 5.23 percent to 5,493.95. France’s CAC-40 index dropped 5.59 percent to 3,852.63. In Russia, trading in shares was suspended after the RTS stock index fell more than 15 percent. Iceland’s exchange was also closed while the government rushed to draft a plan to deal with the financial turmoil’s impact on its over-leveraged banking sector.

European governments have moved to save troubled banks, and are making more promises to protect depositors from the credit crisis.