Stocks in the United States rose on Thursday, but European markets fell.
The Dow Jones Index was up 0.14% on Thursday at 12401.58. The Nasdaq Composite was up 0.77% at 2668.79.
The ABC reports commercial banks in Europe again parked record amounts of money with the European Central Bank on Wednesday night, highlighting their unwillingness to lend to each other.
Eurozone lenders placed 453 billion euros ($US567 billion) on deposit with the ECB for 24 hours, breaking the previous record set last week.
The FTSE1200 in London on Thursday was down 0.78%, the DAX in Frankfurt was down 0.25% and the CAC-40 in Paris was down 1.53%.
The BBC reports bank stocks dropped. In France, Societe Generale was down 5.4% and BNP Paribas was down 5.3%.
Deutsche Bank in Germany fell almost 6%. Commerzbank was down 4.5%.
Santander in Spain dropped 4.5%. UniCredit in Italy fell 17% before its shares were suspended for the second consecutive day.
The ASX 200 index in Australia closed down 1.1% at 4143 and the All Ordinaries Index finished 1% weaker at 4,197. The NZX 50 closed at 3284.123.
At 8.15am on Friday, the New Zealand dollar was trading at 0.78 US cents, 0.76 Australian cents, 0.50 pence and 60.26 yen. The Trade Weighted Index was at 69.95.
Brent crude oil was trading at $US115.23 per barrel and gold was trading at $US1623 per ounce.
