Stocks have fallen on Wall Street after Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke expressed concerns about the US economy, saying it faces unusually uncertain prospects.
The Dow Jones Index was down 109 points, or 1.1%, to 10,121 and the Nasdaq Composite was down 35 points, 1.6%, to end at 2,185.
In Europe, the FTSE 100 index in London was up 1.5%, the DAX in Frankfurt was up 0.4% and the CAC-40 in Paris was up 0.8%.
Earlier in Toyko, the Nikkei index fell 21 points to 9279. The Hang Seng in Hong Kong was up 222 points on 20,487.
The Australian 200 was up 9 points, or 0.2%, to 4413.
The NZX 50 was up 8 points, or 0.3%, to close at 3003 on turnover of $55 million.
At 8.25am on Thursday, the New Zealand dollar was trading at 71.23 US cents, 81.23 Australian cents, 46.96 pence, 62.05 yen and 0.5583 euro. The Trade Weighted Index was at 67.30.
Brent crude oil was trading at $US76.70 per barrel and gold was trading at $US1184.55 per ounce.
