With the financial crisis now almost a month old, Japan's Nikkei stock index plunged nearly 11 per cent on Friday, while the yen and gold rose on growing concerns that no government effort so far has kept the global economy from a path to recession.

Investors, who earlier this year piled into oil and other commodities as a hedge against inflation and the weak dollar, are putting cash into safer havens and have sent oil plummeting by more than $60 from its record high above $147 in July.

US light crude for November delivery fell $4.16, or 4.8 per cent, to $82.43 a barrel by 0503 GMT, just above its earlier low of $82.00, in its biggest two-week decline since the start of the Iraq war in 2003.

London Brent crude shed $3.71 to $78.95 a barrel, the first time it has been below $80 in a year.

"The decline in oil prices was despite OPEC indicating that it will hold an extraordinary meeting on 18 November," said David Moore, a commodity strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said it would hold the emergency meeting in Vienna to discuss the impact of the financial crisis on the oil market.

The statement came after calls from OPEC ministers this week for action to halt a slide in oil prices.

"OPEC appears to be scrambling to put in another, firmer floor at $80," said Jonathan Kornafel, Asia director of US based options trader Hudson Capital Energy.

"The market may still overshoot on the downside regardless of what OPEC does, as financial flows continue to pour out of commodities," he added.

Investors will also look to Washington, where finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven major industrial nations will meet amid expectations that the group will present a united front on policy to contain the crisis.

Potentially taking two dramatic steps to repair ailing financial markets, the United States is considering guaranteeing billions of dollars in bank debt and temporarily insuring all US bank deposits, the Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) releases its monthly report on the oil market at 0900 GMT, and investors are expecting another cut in demand expectations for this year and next.