At the beginning of the first week following the terror attacks in New York and Washington D.C. stock markets in the Asia Pacific region have opened in a woeful state – perhaps indicating a global financial collapse is in the air.

At 2pm this afternoon the NZSE40 was down 82 points, or 4.5%, plugging depths last seen at the height of the Asian Economic Crisis in October 1998. Prior to that you need to go back to 1993 before you have seen such weakness in NZ stocks.

Air New Zealand’s share price - hit with the double whammy of its own internal problems - and the growing global security crisis is presently down 40% at 30 cents a share.

Other Asia-Pacific markets are similarly running scared.

Australia’s market is down 3.6%, Japan’s 5.3%, Singapore’s 4.8% and Taiwan’s 4.5% (See… http://quote.yahoo.com/m2 for live prices).

The US Dollar meanwhile has also been taking a battering falling to 117 yen and 0.926 Euro (See.. http://quote.yahoo.com/m3?u for live currency cross rates).

Somewhat surprisingly the Kiwi dollar has not been a beneficiary of US Dollar weakness and is currently trading at 41.78 US cents, off 0.6 US Cents for the day. The Kiwi has also fallen against the Australian Dollar and on a TWI basis is trading at just under 49.

Meanwhile crude oil prices are just a fraction under the US30 dollars a barrel mark up more than $1 dollar a barrel (See… http://www.bloomberg.com/energy/ for live prices).

On the flight to safety side of the ledger the gold price is presently up $3 so far today at $289USD an ounce, back at the top of the immediate post WTC crash price spike (See.. http://www.imdtrading.com/gold_prices.htm for live prices).

US’s market setting markets have been closed since the tragic events last Tuesday (New York Time – Wednesday NZT) and will be opening early tomorrow morning New Zealand time.

Before then the European markets are due to open this evening NZT and may provide some indication of how New York is likely to open after its longest break in trading since World War One.

(Continuing…)

© Scoop Media

Alastair Thompson

Scoop Publisher

Alastair Thompson is the co-founder of Scoop. He is of Scottish and Irish extraction and from Wellington, New Zealand. Alastair has 24 years experience in the media, at the Dominion, National Business Review, North & South magazine, Straight Furrow newspaper and online since 1997. He is the winner of several journalism awards for business and investigative work.

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