KEY POINTS:
The sharemarket hit a fresh three-year low today, and a handful of blue chips sank to multi-year lows, after US markets spiralled downwards and selling spread across the globe.
The NZSX-50 benchmark index closed down 2.2 per cent, or 68.97 points, at 3094.4, and is down 13 per cent since the start of June. Turnover totalled $141 million.
"Normally you have fear and greed driving markets - last year it was greed, and now it's fear," said David Price of Forsyth Barr.
"We're seeing a liquidation from offshore, and they've been relatively aggressive, and on the flip side of that we're seeing a lot of people just not wanting to go into the market because it's been pretty much one-way traffic."
The US blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average sank into a bear market on poor employment data and new record highs for oil, prompting a 2 per cent decline on Australia's benchmark index, and heightened fears in Asian markets about company earnings and consumer spending.
Falling confidence, reduced consumer spending, and repricing of overvalued assets had long been expected, particularly following the unravelling of global credit markets last year.
"It's like catching a falling anvil at the moment," Mr Price said, noting that stocks were trading below their valuations by as much as 30 per cent.
Telecom slid 11c to a new 15-year closing low of 328, second-ranked Contact Energy lost 17c to 771, and Fletcher Building hit a three-year low of 621, down 11c.
Other stocks to hit to their lowest point in years were The Warehouse, down 16c at 377; Sky City, 9c lower at 301; and Auckland International Airport, down 5c at 190.
Fisher & Paykel Healthcare was down 10c at 225, F&P Appliances lost 5c to 189, Sky TV shed 13c to 407, and Infratil lost 9c to 177.
Among the bigger declines, TrustPower fell 28c to 740, Hallenstein Glasson lost 11c to 250, Port of Tauranga fell 25c to 640, and Mainfreight fell 10c to 625.
Pike River Coal, which joined the top-50 index on Tuesday at the expense of Hellaby Holdings, was down 20c at 220, while 31-per cent owner NZ Oil and Gas was down 12c at 169.
The sole top-50 stocks to rise were Telstra, up 4c at 534, ING Property, up a cent at 90, and Air New Zealand, up a cent at 112 after news it would raise airfares later this month to help counter rising fuel prices.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 Index was down 2.1 per cent at 4988, while Japan's Nikkei share average rose 0.2 per cent.
Earlier, amid a broad US stock sell-off that also left the benchmark S&P 500 teetering on the brink of bear territory, the Dow closed more than 20 per cent below its October peak.
The blue-chip Dow had been on the cusp of a bear market for days, but was finally unable to withstand the avalanche of warnings about banking losses, surging inflation fears and weakening consumer confidence.
- NZPA
