European stocks ended the week deep in red, with a key index hitting its lower level in five months as mounting fears continued about the ability of Spain and Greece to deal with debts and fix their troubled banking sectors.
US stocks have slumped as Facebook's highly anticipated record market debut disappointed, adding to bearish sentiment about Europe's financial woes.
Britain's blue-chip FTSE 100 index fell to its lowest level since late November, closing at 5295.94.
The index closed below 5400 points for the first time this year on Thursday, and was set to record its third consecutive week of losses.
Traders and investors cited persistent worries over debt crises in Greece and Spain and consequent pressure on other euro debtors as the principal driver behind the fall in the FTSE and other equities markets.
Even the Asian markets, which had proved resilient to Europe's woes, finished down on Friday.
"Markets do look oversold but there's still a lot of uncertainty out there.
"There is a realisation that it's taking longer to sort out the global crisis than initially thought," Bastion Capital head of equities Adrian Slack said.
Mr English will release his fourth Budget this week and the details provided so far have a familiar ring to them - a tight focus on cost control in the midst of a slow economic recovery and shortfalls in revenue.
The Government has repeatedly committed to a return to surplus by the 2014-15 financial year and, given the starting point - a deficit of $18.4 billion last year and a likely deficit of about $12 billion this year - there is not a lot of flexibility in the path he has to take to get there.
Westpac chief economist Dominick Stephens said the softer-than-expected economy had had the biggest impact on the fiscal accounts.
But real activity and inflation were tracking well below the Treasury's forecasts, which had been a double blow to tax revenue.
In the six months to March, core Crown revenue was running $1.6 billion below forecasts.
Core spending was also tracking about $1.8 billion below projections, but much of that represented delayed spending rather than savings, he said.
A weaker-than-expected level of activity carried through into the projections for later years.
Mr English recently said the projected balance for the 2014-15 year had deteriorated by about $1 billion since the last published forecasts in February on a combination of lower revenue and higher costs.
Mr English will no doubt be keeping a watch on Europe where investors are becoming increasingly concerned with how hard the credit crisis is hitting the euro-zone economy.
A potential for a Greek euro exit and the deteriorating health of the Spanish banking system at the weekend fuelled a growing sense among investors the crisis in the 17-member currency block is nearing new heights.
Fears the euro-zone disruption will upset global growth were behind a worldwide shift out of riskier assets last week that drove the global sharemarkets to their lows for the year and the US dollar to a four-month high.
Leaders of the 27-member European Union meet in Brussels this week to try and find solutions but they still seem at odds over the role of the new permanent euro zone bail-out fund, the European Stability Mechanism, while France's new president Francois Hollande is leading a dispute with Germany over the bloc's "fiscal compact" to enforce government budget discipline.
The European Commission and the European Central Bank were working on an emergency scenario in case Greece had to leave the euro zone, EU trade commissioner Karel De Gucht said in an interview published on Friday.
The comments would appear to be the first time an EU official has confirmed the existence of contingencies being taken for a possible Greek exit from the currency bloc.
Speculation has been rife about such plans, but their existence has not been confirmed.
Mr English has already announced his document this year will be a "zero Budget", just as it was last year.
At the very least, this means the $800 million per year of new operational spending that was previously allowed for has been cut.
Allowances for new spending in the next two Budgets are likely to be substantially reduced.
