KEY POINTS:
It's a one-way street for stock markets around the globe today, as a sharp drop on Wall Street has hit the confidence of worldwide equity investors.
It all started with a slide in US stocks on Friday, sending the benchmark S&P 500 down more than 1 per cent,
as persistent worries about financing for corporate takeovers sent Wall Street to another tumble despite positive data on economic growth.
The Dow Jones industrial average was down 124.45 points, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index was down 15.00 points, and the Nasdaq Composite Index was down 22.49 points.
Investors have continued to recoil from all but the safest of stocks today, with the US shock reverberating through financial markets around the world.
So what has reaction been in the first markets to open for business today - here, Australia and Japan?
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This morning, our sharemarket opened lighter, if only slightly, suggesting our investors were rebuffing the bearish US sentiment. The market was down 0.4 per cent in early trading.
Fletcher Building was down 6c early to 1250, following a 42c descent on Friday, while Contact Energy rose 3c to 950, after an 18c fall on Friday.
Fisher & Paykel Appliances slipped 5c to 350, but F&P Healthcare was up 5c to 331,
Other early falls included Auckland International Airport, down 2c to 330, Freightways 4c to 400, Infratil 5c to 310, Property for Industry 1c to 140, Pumpkin Patch 4c to 341, Sky City 7c to 485, Trustpower 10c to 820 and Tower 3c to 240.
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Just after lunchtime (NZT), the Australian market was showing signs of a much weakened opening to the week.
The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index had shed 22 points to 6060.2 while the All Ordinaries was 27 points lower to 6100.3.
On the Sydney Futures Exchange, the September share price index contract was down 27 points to 6,038 on a volume of 10,651 contracts.
ABN AMRO Morgans private client adviser Bill Bishop said Sydney futures were at one point down 132 points, so the dip into the red could have been worse after last week's performances by global markets.
"We haven't gone completely over the waterfall," he said.
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In Japan, the Nikkei share average fell 0.84 per cent on opening just moments ago, after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling coalition suffered a crushing defeat in an upper house election on Sunday.
In the election for Japan's upper house, where half of the 242 seats were up for grabs, Abe's Liberal Democratic Party alone won 37 seats, media said, worse than the loss in 1998 that forced Ryutaro Hashimoto to resign as prime minister.
The Nikkei was down 145.28 points at 17,138.53 at the open, lowest level since April 3.
- REUTERS, NZ HERALD STAFF