The Economy Hub: Why are sharemarkets freaking out?

Wall street investors are driving the trend as nerves grow about the timing of US interest rate rises. Photo / AP.

The S&P/NZX-50 Index fell again today taking losses to nearly 5 per cent in just over week.

Wall street investors were driving the trend as nerves grew about the timing of US interest rate rises, said Harbour Asset Management's Shane Solly.

Over the past few years New Zealand had been a beneficiary of the "bond refugees", Solly said.

"This is people who have been moving capital out of extremely low interest rate markets."

The market has risen four times in value in the last decade while earnings were only up two and a half times.

"We've absolutely hit it out of the park."

As investors are seeing central banks are possibly at the end of their easing cycle, they're thinking twice about putting so much into New Zealand.

We were starting get close to a turning point for markets which had delivered great returns over the past few years as interest rates had fallen, said Craigs Investment Partners Mark Lister.

"Investors are realising that interest rates can't go down too much lower and from here it gets a little bit harder, companies need to deliver on fundamental earnings growth and you're starting to see people react and price that in," Lister said.

The US Federal Reserve was not likely to raise rates next week which meant market volatility should settle down a bit, Lister said.

But the degree of market nerves, even though rate hike odds were low was a reminder of how reliant markets were on low interest rates.

On that basis it was probably healthy to see small corrections now rather than a big crash later.