The New Zealand stock market is following other markets downwards amid panic over the global financial crisis.
At 12.25pm on Tuesday, the NZX 50 index was down 79 points to 2,969.
At the close of trade on Monday, the index was down 103 points, or 3.3%, to 3048 on turnover of $45 million.
The Australian share market is also down. At 10.12am (AEDT), the ASX 200 was down 148.5 points to 4,3919.9 - or 3.27%.
On Monday, the Australian market fell more than 3% to a three-year low.
On Wall Street, stocks fell for the fourth consecutive day sending the Dow Jones index to below 10,000 for the first time in four years.
The Dow fell 369.88 points, or 3.58%, to 9,955.50. It was the first time the Dow closed below 10,000 since October 2004.
Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 42.34 points, or 3.85%, to 1,056.89, while the Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 84.43 points, or 4.34%, to 1,862.96.
It was the S&P 500's lowest close since December 2003.
For the year to date, the Dow is down about 25%, the S&P 500 is down 28% and the Nasdaq is down 29.8%.
Trading was active on the New York Stock Exchange, with about 1.95 billion shares changing hands. About 3.45 billion shares were traded - on the Nasdaq - sharply above last year's daily average of 2.17 billion.
Other markets
In London, the FTSE 100 index lost 7.85% - its biggest percentage fall since 1987. In Paris the Cac-40 suffered its largest fall on record.
Earlier, Asian stocks took a hammering from investors. Japan's Nikkei index closed down 4.3%, or 465 points, at 10,473.1 - its lowest close since February 2004.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng index slid 5%, while key Russian markets slumped by 15%.
Markets in India, China, Australia and Singapore also lost ground, while the main Indonesian market lost 10% - the biggest one-day fall on record.
This is despite the passage of a $US700 billion bank bail-out on Friday in the United States and efforts by several European countries to boost confidence in their banks.
