Stocks on Wall Street have fallen after comments by President Barack Obama fell short of addressing worries the recovery is faltering.
Investors on Monday looked ahead with caution to important economic figures coming this week on manufacturing, services and August non-farm payrolls
Mr Obama said he had discussed additional steps to help the recovery with his advisers, but the speech did not contain any concrete measures.
The Dow Jones Index fell 140 points to close at 10,010. The Nasdaq Composite was down 33 points to close at 2120.
Earlier, the FTSE 100 in London was up 0.9%, the CAC-40 in Paris was down 0.7% and the DAX in Frankfurt was down 0.6%.
The Nikkei Index in Tokyo rose 158 points to 9149.
Across the Tasman, the Australian 200 Index was up 83 points to 4453.
The NZX 50 index was up 29 points to close at 3,037 on turnover of $67 million.
At 8.30am on Tuesday, the New Zew Zealand dollar was trading at 70.67 US cents, 79.23 Australian cents, 45.69 pence, 59.71 yen and 0.5575 euro. The Trade Weighted Index was at 66.25.
Brent crude oil was trading at $US76.70 per barrel and gold was trading at $US1236.20 per ounce.