Leading shares crumbled today in the wake of massive overnight losses in the Far East.

Both Tokyo and Hong Kong plummeted, leaving the FTSE-100 Index hitting a session low of 5,777.7, before marginally recovering to 5,803.2, down 67.5 points, by early afternoon.

Far East linked stocks were in the front line of fire.

HSBC fell 59p to £15.41, Cable & Wireless dropped 13p to 680p and Standard Chartered slipped 14p to 747p.

Geri Halliwell's departure from the Spice Girls helped push down shares in EMI Group, for whom the feisty five have been a major revenue earner over the past year.

EMI, still the subject of takeover speculation, fell 11p to 507p.

Another survey revealed this morning that manufacturers were heading deeper into recessionary trouble after a fall in new orders abroad and at home.

Engineering group Siebe fell 10p to 960p and Smiths Industries weakened 10p to 960p despite winning a new set of orders to upgrade plane electronic systems.

However, British Steel climbed 6p to 157.5p on the back of reports that brokers were positive about its outlook following its cost-cutting drive.

Elsewhere, the long-running takeover wrangle for Birmingham Midshires looked set to be resolved with a reported £5m compensation payment being made to Royal Bank of Scotland in return for withdrawing its offer.

Reports claimed RBS would scoop a further £10m if the Halifax succeeds in its takeover plans.

Halifax shares plunged 22p to 902p - a fall of more than 2% in the company's value.

But RBS also fell 7p to £10.27 on what was largely a poor morning for financial stocks.

Lloyds TSB dropped 14.5p to 875p, Alliance & Leicester eased 13.5p to 815.5p, Abbey National cooled 6p to £10.87, NatWest slipped 28p to £10.91 and the Bank of Scotland lowered 3.5p to 705p.

Woolwich stumbled 6p to 338p, while Barclays firmed 5p to £16.39 and Northern Rock headed a modest 2p north to 610p.

Shares in Vickers dipped marginally, 0.5p to 243p, in the start of a week which will see it face hard questioning at its EGM over the future for Rolls-Royce Motors which also take in Bentley cars.

News of major gas finds in Pakistan bolstered shares in Premier Oil and Monument Oil & Gas, undaunted by fears of an accelerating arms race between the country and neighbouring India.

Lasmo, down 4.25p to 285.75p, struck similar potential riches in the area recently.

Shares in Premier gushed up 1.5p to 48.5p and Monument sparked up 4.5p to 69.25p.

Media analysts remained unimpressed by a strong trading year at media group Emap, which reaped benefits from improving French markets. The group fell 7p to £12.86.