KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand sharemarket fell sharply in early trading, following the lead of overseas markets and despite an unprecedented cut in official interest rates.
Around 10.10am the benchmark NZX-50 index was down 48.58 points, or 1.68 per cent, to 2850.82.
Yesterday it fell 52.6 points.
Among leading stocks early today, Telecom was down 9c to $2.35, Contact Energy dropped 17c to $7.14 and Fletcher Building lost 12c to $6.00.
Mainfreight was down 10c to 590, Sky City down 9c to 330, The Warehouse down 8c to 395, Pike River Coal down 7c to 130, NZ Oil & Gas down 6c to 117 and Tower down 6c to 140.
In the United States, stocks tumbled to five-year lows as investors grappled with an increasingly dire outlook for the global economy following a raft of disappointing profits and outlooks from major US companies.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 5.7 per cent to 8519.21. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index slid 6.1 per cent to 896.78, its lowest closing level since April 2003.
The Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 4.8 per cent to 1615.75, closing at it lowest level since June 2003.
Also today, the Reserve Bank cut official interest rates by 1 percentage point to 6.5 per cent, bringing the hope of some easing in mortgage rates amid turmoil in the global financial system.
- NZPA
