Stocks on Wall St were flat on Thursday with investors wondering what Europe's leaders will do to ease the debt crisis.
The Dow Jones Index was up 8 points to 11,513 and the Nasdaq Composite down 10 points to 2594.
In Europe, the FTSE-100 in London was down 1.2%, the CAC-40 in Paris was down 2.3% and the DAX in Frankfurt was down 2.5%.
The Nikkei index in Tokyo was down 90 points to 8682.
The Australian 200 Index was down 69 points, or 1.6%, to 4142. The NZX 50 was down 10 points, or 0.3%, to close at 3290.
At 8.28am on Friday, the New Zealand dollar was trading at 79.43 US cents, 77.51 Australian cents, 50.27 pence, 61.01 yen and 0.5760 euro. The Trade Weighted Index was at 69.54.
Brent crude oil was trading at $US109.97 per barrel and gold is trading at $US1611.96 per ounce.
