KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand sharemarket recovered this afternoon to close in the black, despite declines of more than 1 per cent across the Tasman.
The benchmark NZSX-50 index closed up 6.37 points, or 0.2 per cent, at 2774.64 on turnover totalling $47.4 million.
The index closed yesterday up 0.4 per cent, and had been down 37 points at one stage today.
In contrast to the sharemarket pick-up, the New Zealand dollar fell to a one-month low after a poor business confidence survey, and Standard & Poor's downgrade on the outlook for foreign currency debt.
Top stock Telecom, which yesterday announced the closure of its online shopping venture Ferrit, recovered 5c to a two-month high of 252.
Contact Energy fell 6c to 727, Fletcher Building was up 4c at 599, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare rose 6c to 320, and F&P Appliances was up a cent at 139.
Auckland International Airport fell 2c to 169, Sky City was up 6c at 308 and Sky TV gained a cent to 391.
Tower was up 3c at 157, The Warehouse jumped 7c to 362, Pike River Coal was up 3c at 103, and Hallenstein Glasson rose 5c to 215.
Among stocks to decline, Freightways lost 6c to 293, Mainfreight lost 15c to 465, Port of Tauranga was down 5c to 650, and Trustpower lost 10c to 720.
Dual-listed stocks were mixed, with ANZ down 60c at 1740 and APN News & Media off 15c at 268, but Westpac up 30c at 1980 and Telstra 12c higher at 440.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 Index was down 0.96 per cent at 3647, and Japan's Nikkei share average plunged 4.6 per cent.
Asian shares were feeling the effects of fears on Wall Street, where stocks fell on Monday over concerns about massive credit losses at Citigroup which knocked its shares 17 per cent lower.
Investors also worried about poor fourth-quarter earnings after a bigger-than-expected loss from aluminium producer Alcoa.
- NZPA
