There's been a large sell-off of stocks in the United States after Greece received another credit downgrade and a forecast from FedEx fell short of expectations.
Sentiment was also hit by difficulties surrounding Citigroup's share sale to repay its loan to the US Government.
The Dow Jones Index on Thursday was down 103 points to 10,337.
The Nasdaq Composite was down 22 points to 2185.
Earlier, the FTSE in London was down 81 points to 5238, the CAC-40 in Paris was down 37 points to 3838 and the DAX in Frankfurt was down 47 to 5956.
The Australian 200 Index closed up 8 points, or 0.18%, to 4670 on Thursday.
The NZX 50 closed down 9 points, or 0.3%, to 3123.
At 8.30am on Friday, the New Zealand dollar was trading at 71.05 US cents, 80.09 Australian cents, 43.92 pence, 64.85 yen and 0.495 euro. The Trade Weighted Index was at 64.76.
Brent crude oil was trading at $US71.50 per barrel and gold was trading at $US1104.05 per ounce.
