The New Zealand sharemarket fell 1 percent in early trading, as markets around the world decided to take fright at the prospect that a bailout for indebted Greece will fail to stop the debt crisis spreading to other weak euro zone countries.The fall in Ne
The New Zealand sharemarket fell 1 percent in early trading, as markets around the world decided to take fright at the prospect that a bailout for indebted Greece will fail to stop the debt crisis spreading to other weak euro zone countries.
The fall in New Zealand came after investors dumped stocks in Europe and the United States, where Wall Street had its worst session in three months, echoing a wave of fear that gripped financial markets as investors fretted the crisis in Europe could derail the global economic recovery. A gauge of investor fear jumped more than 18 percent.
Around 10.15am the benchmark NZX-50 index was down 38.04 points, or 1.15 percent, to 3259.98, having gained 17.7 points yesterday.
Fletcher Building shares fell 15c to 825, Contact Energy was down 9c to 620, Nuplex fell 9c to 332, NZ Refining Co lost 7c to 365, Freightways dropped 5c to 322, Sky TV fell 5c to 495, Fisher&Paykel Healthcare fell 4c to 355, Telecom dropped 4c to 216, and The Warehouse fell 4c to 371.
In the US, the Dow Jones industrial average ended down 2 percent to 10,926.77, the Standard&Poor's 500 Index fell 2.4 percent to 1173.60, and the Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 3 percent to 2424.25.
Europe's FTSEurofirst 300 was off 3 percent to 1033.18. Germany's DAX was down 2.6 percent, while Spain's IBEX 35 dropped 5.4 percent.
