Major New Zealand stocks Contact Energy, Fletcher Building and Telecom took a collective hit of more than $600 million on Tuesday, as investors fled amid trembling world markets, and the New Zealand stock exchange shed more than 2.5% in value overall.
On Monday, huge losses were booked by giant US insurer AIG, and mirrored by Europe's largest bank, HSBC, in the United Kingdom.
This affected sharemarkets around the world, most of which shed more than 4% value.
Global sharemarkets yesterday steadied after the battering.
The New Zealand and Australian markets had both booked losses.
Australia fell more than 2.5% and its All Ordinaries index fell 1%.
The New Zealand market yesterday ended up 2.1% on the SE 50 index, on light turnover of about $60 million.
Following Monday's volatility in the US, on the close of Tuesday trading, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.55%, the tech-heavy Nasdaq shed 0.14% and the Standard and Poor's 500 index was down 0.64; with the Dow and S&P at respectively 12 and 13-year lows.
Several listed New Zealand companies hit five or six-year lows on Tuesday, when shares shed 6%-10% in value.
The three majors also suffered, with Contact Energy's market capitalisation falling -7.73%, or $265.2 million, to $3.1 billion; Telecom -6.61%, or $292.5 million, to $4.1 billion; and Fletcher building -1.7%, or $45.5 million, to $2.6 billion.
ABN Amro Craigs broker Chris Timms said all three major stocks retraced some losses during the day, and at closing, Contact and Fletcher were up respectively 0.4% and 2.1%, and Telecom retraced 5.3%.
Mr Timms said much of the volatility and selling would have been by large offshore institutional investors reacting to the volatile markets in the US, "triggering" them to sell investments here and repatriate cash.
However, yesterday's local rebound was caused by lack of sellers.
Mr Timms said the Australian market remained depressed "right across the board" in general yesterday.
However, its banking and insurance sectors were hardest hit.
That was not reflected in New Zealand markets, which lacked the extent of exposure to the banking and insurance sectors, he said.
