The sharemarket fell sharply on Wednesday in line with offshore markets.
The benchmark Top 40 index fell 32 points, or 0.7% to 4510.
Harbour Asset Management managing director Andrew Bascand says global markets were focused on Syria and the potential for intervention in that conflict by a number of countries.
He says the markets have been quite positive for the last two or three months.
Harbour Asset Management has $1.2 billion in assets under management.
Telecom fell 4 cents to $2.20, while Fisher & Paykel Healthcare rose 3 cents to $3.55.
Bancorp Treasury Services senior adviser Peter Cavanaugh says worries about Syria are also dominating currency and interest rate markets.
Wholesale interest rates fell about 5 basis points.
Around 5pm, the kiwi was down about 0.5 US cents at 77.6 cents, almost steady against the Australian dollar at 87.1 cents, down from 50.14 British pence on Tuesday to 49.99 pence, down nearly 0.5 euro at 58.01 and down just over 1.25 yen at 75.42 yen.
