Thursday's slump in markets globally will continue in coming months as the fundamental problems facing the global economy continue, analysts told CNBC Friday.
On Thursday, European equities suffered their biggest daily fall since March 2009, as data across the euro zone indicated that recent gloominess in the region will continue.
There was talk of a Black Friday in Germany, the euro zone's biggest economy, after the Dax was Thursday's biggest faller in Europe.
Analysts at prominent banks slashed their forecasts for global and US growth as fears of a second recession within three years grew.
Politicians in the euro zone and the US were criticized for their monetary policies.
Morgan Stanley cut its global growth forecast for 2011 and 2012 Thursday and warned the U.S. and the euro zone were "dangerously close to a recession."
Citi slashed its forecast for US growth and issued a gloomy prognosis over the economy's "inability to mount a full recovery."
"We are in an unmitigated bear market," Dennis Gartman, author of The Gartman Letter, told CNBC Friday.
"It's true that there's an unmitigated diminution of assets almost everywhere."
"The rally that we had last week took place on very low volume," he added.
"There's further to go on the downside and there's still a deal of fluff left in the market that has to be taken out."
There has been renewed focus on the role of short-selling and high-frequency trading in the past fortnight after France, Italy, Spain and Belgium banned short-selling of the shares of banks and other financial companies following mass sell-offs last week," he said.
As central banks around the world cut interest rates and pumped money into their economies during the last recession, there are concerns that the options for monetary policy will be more limited this time around if the euro zone or the US slips into recession again.
TheSwiss National Bank announced a 2 billion Swiss franc ($2.5 billion) package to try and combat the strengthening of the currency this week.
"We have done everything to monetary policy that we could do and this slowdown is going to be uncontrollable," Roger Nightingale, RDN Associates, told CNBC.
"We have a serious recession coming, possibly even a depression."
Some analysts are advising investors to look for buying opportunities in relatively weak markets.
Morgan Stanley cut its global GDP forecast to 3.9 percent in 2011 and 3.8 percent in 2010, from 4.2 percent and 4.5 percent respectively previously.
Analysts at the bank criticized policymakers in Washington and Europe for not acting more decisively to contain the sovereign debt crisis.
Since the credit crisis of 2007-08, many companies have shored up their balance sheets and levels of debt are lower than in the previous recession.
"The balance sheets of corporations and consumers are in better shape than 2008," said Gartman.
"History tells us that, once bear markets get started, the recession will start in earnest."
