A day after the Japan's Nikkei booked its worst loss of 11% since the 1987 crash, it yesterday was trading up 1.5%, while the NZX SE 50 began retracing some of its 4.8% loss on Thursday, opening 2% higher before sliding to a close 1.59% up.
In Australia, following almost 7% market losses on Thursday, the ASX All Ords and S&P 200 index closed down 1.06% and 1.09% respectively.
Overseas investors appear to be maintaining their panic-stricken selling spree, with attention shifting from the bad news of US and European banking houses to the bad news of imminent world recession, spurred on by negative US economic data and the likelihood of unflattering US company reports due out shortly.
The close of Thursday's trading saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average swing to 4.68%, the tech Nasdaq up 5.49% and the broader S&P 500 index gain 4.25%.
NZX's overall loss of 16% of value during the past 30 days is well below the 26% average lost on the Dow Jones, Nikkei, FTSE 100 and S&P 200 in major markets in other countries.
ABN Amro Craigs broker Peter McIntyre said the New Zealand market was less sophisticated in trading techniques, such as options and futures, than overseas counterparts and had escaped some of the volatility.
"There's been a substantial drop in market values during the past 30 days. Not only was the Dow Jones down 25.4%, but that includes one day with a 12% gain. Quite breathtaking," he said when contacted yesterday.
Asian markets generally traded up slightly yesterday, but three of major bourses were still in negative territory just before closing.
Few analysts were willing to to predict likely investor activity because of huge swings and Mr McIntyre believed the volatility would stay with the market for as long as three months.
There has been more "bottom-feeding" activity during the past week; investors jumping in to scoop up cheap stocks then on-sell relatively quickly during rebounds, but this group of traders and investors accounted for only a small percentage of the market place, Mr McIntyre said.
While there was noticeably more interest in buying the stock as values fell this week, Mr McIntyre said investors were setting a price to buy and waiting for the market to fall further rather than buying directly at the market price on offer.
The opening of trading in New Zealand on Monday is expected to mirror that of Friday's New York trading "and could go either way", he said.
Reuters reported from the US there was more evidence of a thaw in credit markets also appearing, prompting investors on Thursday to swoop in for bargains after Wednesday's global rout.
Nathan Topper at Economy.com said there were signs of improvements in the credit markets, which could eventually ease the financial turmoil.
However, a fresh batch of US economic reports due out on Thursday is likely to show more problems for the already stumbling American economy.
Industrial production is expected to have dropped in September, underscoring the plight of troubled car-makers as well as manufacturers of furniture, construction materials and other goods that have been hit hard by the collapse of the housing market.
The number of people signing up for unemployment benefits last week may dip slightly but is still expected to top 400,000, a level that usually points to an ailing labour market.
