The luxury retail world is bracing for an aftershock.

Stocks, including Tiffany, Coach and Polo Ralph Lauren, got hit yesterday in a global sell-off as investors fretted over the devastation in Japan would quash the country’s insatiable appetite for designer goods.

Japan consumes 11 percent of the world’s luxury goods, making it one of the most concentrated sources of revenue for upscale brands. A pullback there could pressure sales of high-end retailers for years, analysts said.

Yesterday, hundred of billions in market value were erased in just hours as the selling surge hit the world’s financial centers. Burberry shares fell 4.3 percent, LVMH dropped 3.1 percent, Coach lost 5.6 percent and Tiffany fell 4.9 percent.

Tiffany has 55 stores in Japan and gets 19 percent of its revenue there, while the island nation accounts for 20 percent of Coach’s total sales. “A more negative for the luxury-goods companies would be if the nuclear accident burdened the general global mood,” Swiss asset manager Sarasin said in a note.

The damage from the earthquake and tsunami — and fears of a nuclear meltdown — also hit the global financial markets as investors tried to assess the fallout. Tokyo’s stock market plunged 6.2 percent yesterday, and the slide continued when the Nikkei 225 fell more than 14 percent this afternoon before ending the day down 11 percent. Major European indexes were off between about 1 percent and 1.6 percent. US stocks withstood much of the pounding, with the broader markets losing about a half-percent.

Power brands on the Nikkei were hammered, with Sony down 9.1 percent, Toyota off 8 percent, and Toshiba, which also makes nuclear reactors, plummeting 16 percent. The nation’s investors lost more than $285 billion in the first trading day after the natural disasters.

“The earthquake could have great implications on the global economic front,” said Andre Bakhos, chief market analyst at Lek Securities. “If you shut down Japan, there could be a global recession.”

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 51.24 points to 11,993.16 while the S&P 500 index slipped 7.89 to 1,296.39 and the Nasdaq composite index fell 14.64 to 2,700.97.

As expected, nuclear energy firms took a beating: Entergy fell 4.9 percent and Toronto’s Cameco, one of the world’s largest publicly traded uranium companies, was off 13 percent. General Electric, a maker of nuclear reactors, dropped 1.6 percent, while Exelon, the largest owner of reactors, fell 1.8 percent.

Meanwhile, Germany canceled plans to expand its reactor sites.

After weeks of decline, natural gas rallied here by 0.6 percent in anticipation of an 8.6 percent rise in demand for safer natural gas.

With insurance claims likely to skyrocket, underwriters tumbled. Munich Re fell 3.7 percent, Hartford Financial dropped 3 percent and Aflac lost 3.6 percent.

Prices also fell for rubber futures in anticipation of slower auto assembly lines in Japan. In addition, less consumer demand amid the devastation pushed down global prices for sugar, coffee, cattle and hogs, with pork hitting a 10-week low.

On the flip side, Caterpillar gained 2.1 percent on prospects of more orders for the massive recovery facing Japan and its global partners