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The New Zealand sharemarket's benchmark NZX-50 index fell for a fourth session on the trot as Wall St woes yet again weighed on the world's equity markets.
But while the US Dow Jones industrial average slid 5.11 per cent, to 9447.11, the local market's losses were far less dramatic. Having been down more than 2 per cent early in the session the NZX-50 closed 55.9 points, or 1.9 per cent, down at a fresh three-year closing low of 2948.31.
Among top stocks Telecom was down 11c to $2.67, Contact was off 5c to $7.40 and Fletcher Building was down 6c to $6.36.
First NZ Capital research manager Barry Lindsay said while local investors were not happy, they were not selling to the same extent as those overseas.
"The market's trying to find a bit of a floor. There's at least a little bit of commonsense prevailing. The issues being dealt with in Europe and the US don't exist to anything like the same extent here. Also we're moving to a period of easier monetary conditions.
After the Reserve Bank of Australia cut its official interest rate by a whopping one percentage point on Tuesday, expectations were growing of a big cut by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, possibly even before its next scheduled rate call on October 23.
"Investors are aware of that and not getting themselves in a total flap over what they see happening overseas," said Lindsay.
