Turkey turmoil won't panic market

Turks protest against the attempted coup outside Parliament in Ankara, Turkey. Photo / AP

New Zealand shares are expected to open lower this morning in the wake of Turkey's attempted military coup and investors will be cautious as they wait to see how larger markets react to growing global turmoil, says an analyst.

Craigs Investment Partners' Mark Lister expected New Zealand's sharemarket and its counterparts in Australia and Japan would be down when they open today but didn't think local investors would panic.

"It won't be a bloodbath or anything, it will be some modest, small weakness," Lister said yesterday.

"Let's be honest we're pretty far away from what's happening in that part of the world and we've been much more resilient [than others] through Brexit. We'll hold up pretty well, it might be a down day but people certainly won't panic," he said.

Turkey's leaders on Saturday said they crushed an attempt to topple President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after hours of clashes through the night that saw tanks blockading roads, soldiers fighting police and warplanes bombing the parliament in Ankara. More than 250 people were killed and about 3000 military personnel were arrested.

While Turkey is a small part of the global economy, Lister said the failed coup was another instance of political volatility in the world.

"It's more of the same following in the wake of Brexit ... you've got the US election coming up and all of those other sort of political risks that markets are facing," he said.

News that army officers were attempting to seize power in Turkey came just in time to push US equity futures lower in the final minutes of last week's trading. The sucker punch followed a week in which the S&P 500 index in the US broke records after a 13-month hiatus and global stocks jumped to an eight-month high. Locally, the S&P/NZX 50 posted record closes on three days last week.

The index dipped 0.1 per cent to 7072.89 on Friday.

Friday's sharemarket close followed the terror attack in the French city of Nice, where Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel ploughed his truck into a crowd on Bastille Day.

The attack killed 84 people and injured hundreds.

While the local index was down, European stocks pared losses on Friday and US futures rebounded after the attack - the latest display of market resilience.

Over the past 15 years, financial-market reactions to terror have proven increasingly short-lived.

Past incidents, such as Madrid's train bombings that killed 191 people in March 2004 and blasts that left more than 50 dead in London in July 2005 had spurred declines in equities that were erased days or weeks later.

- Additional reporting: agencies