KEY POINTS:
The sharemarket was a sea of red today, falling up to 2.1 per cent because of a rattled US market and dropping kiwi dollar.
But brokers stressed it was simply a case of follow-the-leader as Wall St lost more than 2 per cent on home lending concerns.
"There no panic on the market, it just some pretty genuine profit taking in a lot of these stocks," Grant Williamson, a partner with Hamilton, Hindin, Greene, said.
"I think we are seeing, particularly among the blue chip stocks a fair degree of foreign selling as investors are looking to exit both the New Zealand equities and New Zealand currency."
Mr Williamson thought the market had held up "reasonably well" given that both Europe and Australia had also been under pressure.
The NZSX-50 benchmark index regained a little strength during the day, down 1.8 per cent or 79.7 points to 4246.00.
Top stock Telecom was down 12c to 470, taking the shine off recent improvements. Contact Energy fell 18c to 947 after touching a record high yesterday, and Fletcher Building eased 42c to a still decent 1256.
Exporter Fisher & Paykel Appliances fell 10c to 355 despite the drop in the kiwi dollar, but its twin Healthcare was up 2c to 326.
So was Hallenstein Glassons, up 11c to 471, and Skellerup up 2c to 91c.
"I think we're starting to see some of these `carry trades' on the kiwi dollar start to unwind," Mr Williamson said in reference to today's fall in the Kiwi dollar down to, at one point, US77.82c.
Among the other stocks, Sky City was down 13c at 492, Auckland Airport shed 2c to 322, Air NZ lost 3c to 252 and Trustpower lost 20c to 830.
Tourism Holdings was flat at 250 following the failed takeover bid by MFS Living and Leisure.
VTL shares fell 9c to 93 after the company conformed the sale of its US franchise assets for US$67.5 million ($87 million).
Market debutant BurgerFuel was flat at 100.
Australia's benchmark index was down 2.5 per cent, while Japan's Nikkei average dipped 2.3 per cent.
Wall St took a battering as the Dow industrials fell 400 points, on more signs of deterioration in the US housing market and problems in financing corporate takeovers.
The Dow Jones industrial average was down 375.23 points, or 2.72 per cent, at 13,409.84.
The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was down 45.75 points, or 3.01 per cent, at 1,472.34. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 75.12 points, or 2.84 per cent, at 2,573.05.
- NZPA