Shares plunged almost 2% on opening on the New Zealand stock exchange yesterday, mirroring a global sell-off in the face of further European sovereign debt uncertainties.
The NZX-50 index was down 1.9% on opening and few stocks escaped the selling spree as the New Zealand bourse, which was closed on Monday for Queen's Birthday, reopened and reflected heavy global selling on Friday and Monday.
Craigs Investment Partners broker Peter McIntyre said "It was across the board and virtually no-one went unscathed."
Telecom was down 1.63% at $1.83, Fletcher Building down 2.8% to $7.95, AMP down 6.21% at $6.80 and ANZ down 4.22% at $27.01.
Michael Hill Jeweller, which announced the closure and consolidation of 17 US stores to nine yesterday, shed 4.29% in value to trade around 67c.
At the end of trading yesterday, the NZX-50 had slightly retraced some losses and closed down 1.36% at 2988.98.
The Asian and Australian market had opened higher, bucking the global trend, with the Australian All Ords up 0.47% and ASX200 up 0.52%, but had sweakened in afternoon trading.
On Monday the Asian markets had been down or flat with Japan's Nikkei index down 3.8% on closing, its largest fall in 14 months.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng was down 2.04% and Korea's Kospi flat.
Mr McIntyre said comments by Hungarian officials that the country may face a "Greek-style" sovereign debt crisis; although able to meet deficit targets, had sparked a loss of investor confidence.
The New Zealand dollar was down to US65.83c on opening yesterday, its second lowest level during the past 10 months, but regained the losses to end the day at US66.35c at 5pm, well down on Friday's close at 5pm of US68.48c.
"All eyes are now on the Reserve Bank on Thursday.
We are expecting a 0.25% rise to the official cash rate to 2.75%, but it is not a certainty," he said.
The Hungarian comments were compounded by US job numbers last week, which showed signs of improvement Mr McIntyre said, but the data did not meet market expectations.
On Friday in New York the Dow Jones industrial closed down 3.15%, the S&P 500 3.44% and the tech heavy Nasdaq composite down 3.64%, while on Monday the Dow Jones fell a further 1.2%, the S&P hit its lowest close in seven months following a 1.4% decline, and the Nasdaq shed another 2%.
Gold, the traditional safe-haven investment, was up slightly to $US1238.20, about noon yesterday on the spot price of the Comex division of the New York stock exchange, while oil was slightly up at $US71.45 per barrel in West Texas.
One of the few shares to make gains early yesterday was the country's largest gold producer, Oceana Gold, whose shares were up 6.5% to $4.39, almost matching a record high of $4.40 struck late last month.
Similarly, the US dollar appealed to investors as another safe haven and the euro slipped to more than four-year lows at $US1.19.
