This from BusinessDay
The New Zealand sharemarket opened sharply lower today following big overnight falls on Wall Street.
The benchmark NZX 50 index fell 81.5 points, or 2.6 per cent, in morning trading to 3,188.4. The big three listed companies were all down significantly. Telecom fell 2.1 per cent to $2.75, Fletcher Building fell 4.4 per cent to $6.95, and Contact Energy slipped 1.8 per cent to $8.60.
Retailer The Warehouse was down 6.25 per cent to $3.
US stocks tumbled overnight as concern mounted that further financial companies would fail following the Government's US$85 billion bail out of insurer American International Group.
The three key US indexes all posted big falls. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 449.36 points, or 4.06 per cent, to 10,609.66, the S&P 500 fell 57.20 points, or 4.71 per cent, to 1,156.39 and the Nasdaq shed 109.05 points, or 4.94 per cent, to 2,098.85.
Rickey Ward, joint domestic equities manager at Tyndall Investment Management, said sharemarkets were being driven by fear and New Zealand was no exception.
