We are not sure that the news could be much worse for stock market investors. As we noteed yesterday, the NZX's future direction will largely bee dictated by developmentss offshore. So what happened yesterday?
Share prices in Asia, Europe and the Americas all plunged by significant amounts; Wall Street only avoided joining the tumble because U.S. markets were closed Monday for Martin Luther King Day.
Markets in Europe reacted with London's FTSE 100 Index down 5.5 percent at 5,578.20; the CAC-40 in Paris down 6.8 percent to 4,744.15; and Frankfurt's DAX dropping 7.2 percent to 6,790.19.
In Japan, the benchmark Nikkei 225 index closed on 13,325.954 points, a slide of 3.9 percent and its biggest dip in two years. Shanghai's Composite index fell 5.1 percent. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index suffered its largest percentage drop since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 when it fell 5.5 percent to 23,818.86 points.
India's Sensex stock index fell nearly 1,353 points or 11 percent -- its second biggest percentage drop ever -- to 17,605.35 points before recovering to 7.4 percent.
The Toronto Stock Exchange opened more than four percent down, falling by 543.13 points to 12,193.13 and taking around US $68 billion off the market's value. A drop of 6.6 percent last week wiped out gains made by the market last year.
Elsewhere in the Americas, stocks in Mexico tumbled by 4.77 percent on opening while markets in Argentina and Brazil fell by 4.64 percent and 6 percent respectively.
Thanks for the summary CNN.
