Forsyth Barr broker Peter Young said last night it had been a rough few days.
"Yesterday it was down, down down; red, red, red from minute one. Having said that some of our market is showing signs of improvement as buyers came back into Fletcher Building, Telecom and Sky City Casino."
If investors could look forward enough and hold their nerve, there were some good buying options out their, he said.
The NZX-50 was down nearly 40% on the same day last year. It closed down 66.57 points at 2578.10, a level last seen in September 2004.
The dollar fell more than US1c to trade at US52.92c at 5pm.
In the United States, deepening economic fears drove the benchmark Standard and Poors 500 index to its lowest level since 1997 - completing the erasure of more than a decade of stock market gains.
The latest leg down in what has been a 13-month whipping of equities worldwide was led by the year's weakest links: banks, commodity producers and car makers.
The S&P 500 is now more than 52% below its October 2007 record high, making the current bear market the second biggest on record. The current decline is exceeded only by the 83% drop between 1930 and 1932, according to the Stock Trader's Almanac.
"People are looking for light at the end of the tunnel and people don't see anything," Giri Cherukuri, head trader at OakBrook Investments LLC in Lisle, Illinois, said.
On Thursday, the price of oil hurtled below $US50 ($NZ94) a barrel, taking energy shares with it as dismal US economic data intensified concerns of a long and deep global recession, crushing fuel demand expectations. Chevron tumbled more than 8% and dragged the most on the Dow.
The Dow Jones industrial average plunged 444.99 points, or 5.56%, to 7552.29. The Standard and Poors 500 Index lost 54.14 points, or 6.71%, to 752.44. The Nasdaq Composite Index slid 70.30 points, or 5.07%, to 1,316.12.
