Nikkei sinks 4%, Hong Kong recovers
Japan and Australia down more than 4%, but Hong Kong manages late rally.
ATLANTA (CNN) -- Asian and Pacific stock markets were mostly lower Tuesday after the U.S. House of Representatives failed to adopt a Wall Street bailout measure, triggering the largest point drop for the Dow industrials in U.S. market history.
The biggest losses were in Tokyo and Sydney. The Japan's Nikkei Index closed down 4.12%, while the Australian Securities Exchange fell 4.32%.
The Korea Exchange in Seoul, South Korea, closed down 0.72%, after being off more than 3% earlier. Bucking the trend, Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained slightly on the day, up 0.76%. (Check world markets)
European markets opened mixed. London's FTSE-100 gained 0.3%, while France's CAC-40 slipped 0.3% and Germany's DAX was nearly 1% lower.
The American stock market was down almost 778 points at closing Monday -- just under 7%.
Other leading indexes were down more: The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq both dropped roughly 9%. The day's loss in the United States knocked out approximately $1.2 trillion in market value, the first $1 trillion-plus day ever, based on the change in the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000, the broadest measure of the U.S. stock market.
The next steps for the U.S. bailout bill were unclear. The abrupt defeat Monday left the Bush administration and Congressional leaders scrambling to figure out whether to renegotiate the bill and introduce it again as soon as Thursday or to try other options.
Stocks crushed: The Dow slumped nearly 778 points Monday, in the biggest single-day point loss ever, after the House rejected the government's $700 billion bank bailout plan.
Bailout plan rejected: The fate of the government's $700 billion financial bailout plan was thrown into doubt Monday as the House rejected the controversial measure.
Failure Fear: Bank stocks hit