Stocks are flat on Wall Street as concerns over the debt crisis in Europe offset gains in the US retail sector where discount chain Target forecast its best same-store sales in three years during the upcoming holiday season.
The Dow Jones Index was up 1 point to 11,025 on Wednesday and the Nasdaq Composite was up 11 points to 2481.
In Europe: the FTSE in London was up 0.2%, the DAX in Frankfurt was up 0.5% and the CAC-40 in Paris was up 0.8%.
Earlier, in Tokyo, the Nikkei Index was up 15 points to 9812.
The Australian 200 Index fell 76 points, or 1.6%, to 4624.
The NZX50 fell 26 points, or 0.7%, on Wednesday to close at 3289 on turnover of $58 million.
At 8.26am on Thursday, the New Zealand dollar was trading at 77.06 US cents, 78.62 Australian cents, 48.47 pence, 64.18 yen and 0.5694 euro. The Trade Weighted Index was at 69.21.
Brent crude oil was trading at $US84.02 per barrel and gold was trading at $US1338.70 per ounce.
