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The New Zealand sharemarket's 3-per cent tumble today was an improvement on earlier losses of over 4 per cent, sparked by the shock rejection of a planned US$700 billion ($1.05 trillion) bailout in the US.
The benchmark NZSX-50 index had dropped close to the 3040 level within 30 minutes of the start of trading, a fall of 148 points or 4.65 per cent, after US lawmakers stunned global markets by rejecting the financial industry bailout package.
By close of trade, the top-50 was down 98.3 points, or 3.08 per cent, at 3090.22, on turnover totalling $142.3 million.
UBS managing director Campbell Stuart said "everyone headed for the door" after the US bailout failed to gain approval, although turnover was very modest in the first few hours.
"People who are opportunistically looking at things are not quite getting the prices that they would like," Mr Stuart said.
"The markets have had a reasonable beating over quite a long period of time and I think genuinely those people that have been around for a while think that there's some good opportunities."
It was a case of people wanting to have confidence that the financial system was going to work properly, he said.
"I'm hopeful that some form of moderation in the bailout will occur and stabilise things, but we'll just have to wait and see."
The failure of the bailout proposal saw the Dow Jones industrial average plummet 1777.86 points, or 6.98 per cent to 10,365, in its biggest one-day drop on record.
The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was down 8.79 per cent at 1106.42, and the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 9.14 per cent to 1983.73.
The fall in this country took the market to its second lowest level in more than three years. The only time since June 2005 that it was lower than today was on July 16 this year when it got close to 3001.
Top stock Telecom was unchanged at 510, while Fletcher Building was down 26c at 665 and Contact Energy lost 47c to 782.
Fisher & Paykel Healthcare was among the few stocks to rise, gaining 5c to 293, although sister stock F&P Appliances lost 11c to 160. Elsewhere on the top-10, Auckland Airport fell 4c to 195, Sky City rose 5c to 366, and Sky TV tumbled 31c to 417.
Among the larger declines, Mainfreight fell 35c to 640, TrustPower lost 30c to 785, NZX fell 24c to 626, carpetmaker Cavalier was down 24c at 240, and The Warehouse lost 15c to 302.
Dual-listed stocks were also hit hard, with ANZ down 46c at 2223, AMP off 50c at 800 and Westpac down 135 at 2715.
Australian stocks fell as much as 5.5 per cent, with investors dumping banks, other financials and some miners, before recovering to be down 2.7 per cent.
Japan's Nikkei share average tumbled 4.5 per cent to a low for 2008 before recovering a little, while the MSCI index of Asia-Pacific stocks outside Japan fell more than 3 per cent, not far off a 26-month low.
- NZPA
