But it still ended down nearly two points for the day at 3404.
The benchmark index fell to 3377, 18 points below this year's low set on March 27, as the bear market took hold.
In February 2006, it reached 3303.
The high of 4342 was reached on May 24 this year.
The index, which understated the market fall because it included dividend payments, has dropped 21.6% since early October.
ABN Amro Craigs broker Chris Timms there was some relief as the market ended up for the day.
"Things were looking ugly around the middle of the day but the shares that were sold off earlier in the week bounced back."
Fletcher Building and Contact were up 1% on the day and Telecom was up 1.5%.
But the volume for the rest of the shares, in particular the smaller stocks, was atrociously low, he said.
Hellaby Holdings was down 6.25% on 3000 shares and the NZX was down 5% on 1900 shares.
"They have moved the market on light volume. People are wary and are not sure which way they they should be going. The larger shares, which are traded by institutions, still have large volume going through."
But even Contact only had 100,000 shares traded.
The uncertainty in the market was causing anxiety among some investors, Mr Timms said.
"Everywhere you look, there is something going on - oil prices, house prices. A lot of the stuff we see offshore, particularly in the Australian markets, we can't do here.
"Hedge funds can sell out of a stock and make money on the way down as well as the way up and that gets the headlines.
"All of those things unsettle people. You can sit and do nothing or sell and most people are doing nothing," he said.
UBS managing director Campbell Stuart said there was a confidence crisis.
"It you look at volumes today, it's just dried up. We suffer the sentiment that is attached to the markets globally and regionally."
World markets have been hit by the US subprime mortgage crisis and the related credit crunch, rocketing high oil prices, slumping house prices and diminishing household incomes.
Locally, the market has been affected by high interest rates, an overvalued currency, drought, and falling economic growth.
Around the world, high inflation was expected to linger for some time and that was coinciding with households experiencing asset price deflation - an unpalatable cocktail for central bankers to deal with.
Mr Stuart said the local market needed relief on the interest rate front and oil prices coming off before it could escape the bear phase.
"Whether either of those things are going to happen in the immediate short term, we'll have to see.
"We are not looking at a particularly high-growth environment in the next two or three years, so from an international perspective there are plenty of markets which are doing better."
A fall in the currency would be welcomed by export stocks but would probably result in more pain on the domestic front in the form of higher petrol prices.
