Global rout in bank shares intensifies as recession fears mount

TOKYO/LONDON, April 4 (Reuters): Bank shares tanked across the globe on Friday as fears of a recession swept through markets in the wake of US President Donald Trump announcing the highest tariff walls in a century.

European banking stocks had tumbled 8% by 1240 GMT and the financials sector was the biggest drag on the STOXX Europe 600.

The selloff accelerated after China's finance ministry said on Friday it would impose additional tariffs of 34% on all US goods from April 10 in retaliation for Trump's tariffs.

US lenders extended declines in premarket trade after crumbling to their lowest in months on Thursday, with JPMorgan Chase, the biggest US lender, losing 4.4%, and Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley more than 5%.

In Asia, Japanese megabanks ended the week with the biggest losses since the financial crisis of 2008 in one of the markets' most unsettling signals so far about the consequences of Trump's trade war.

Banks, as barometers of growth, are seeing their shares hammered as the US breaks with the free trade order that it built up over decades.