European sharemarkets fell for a fifth straight day on Friday to cap off a disastrous trading week that saw the major indexes lose nearly a quarter of their value and Britain's FTSE close at its' lowest level in five years.

Banking and commodity stocks were again hit hard. Shares in Britain's biggest mortgage lender, HBOS, fell 19 percent to 124.2 pence after earlier plunging as much as 28 percent. Shares in Britain's third-largest bank, the Royal Bank of Scotland, dropped 25 percent to 71.7 pence, while shares in the second biggest, Barclays, fell 14 percent to 207.5 pence.

Shares in Europe's largest oil company, Shell, fell 9.3 percent to 1,303 pence, while shares in the region's second biggest, BP, lost 8.1 percent to 376.25 pence as the price of oil headed for its biggest weekly drop since 2003 on concern the deepening financial crisis will push the global economy into a recession.

At the close of trading on Friday, the FTSEurofirst 300 index of pan-European blue chips lost 70.230 points, or 7.622 percent, to close at 851.23, while the UK's FTSE 100 plunged 381.74 points, or 8.85 percent, to close at 3932.06.

The FTSE has now had 22.74 percent slashed from its value over the week.

France's CAC index lost 266.21 points, or 7.73 percent, to close at 3176.49 and bring its weekly plunge to 24.08 percent, including "Meltdown Monday's" record 9.04 percent fall.

Germany's DAX lost 342.69 points, or 7.01 percent, to close at 4544.31. The DAX has shed 23.61 percent of its value in the past trading week.

On the commodity markets, Brent Crude lost US$5.61, or 6.7 percent, to close at US$78.59 a barrel, while on the Forex Gold Index, gold gained US$17, or 1.9 percent, to be worth US$900.50 an ounce.

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