Mining stocks underpinned a positive start for the opening days of most major bourses around the world following a boost to commodity prices, on the back of strong manufacturing data.
However, as if to underscore analysts' predictions of 2011 having plenty of scope for volatility, Wall St reversed its positive first day of trading on the back of financial stocks and on the second day commodity stocks were sold off.
As investors tentatively return to riskier stocks, spot gold prices fell 2.6% to $1378.05 per ounce while oil - which had hit a 27-month high around $US92 ($NZ119.80) - declined 2.8% to $US88.95.
The New Zealand stock exchange resumed yesterday and in early trading was up by 21 points but on light turnover, led by Fletcher Building shares up 16c.
In Australia the ASX 200 index had fallen 0.1%, led down by insurance companies' stocks as Queensland flooding was expected to worsen.
As the day wore on, major resource stocks in Australia fell about 2%.
Reuters reported commodity prices had "crumbled" overnight, after the opening-day gains, and some were falling by their most in eight weeks, as energy, metals and agricultural investors took profits on the heady gains made on thin holiday volume during the past two weeks.
With the absence of any major catalyst for risk aversion, the correction seemed triggered - at least in part - by investor unease that prices had moved up too fast, on too little trade.
Craigs Investment Partners broker Chris Timms said New Zealand's market was following positive news from the United States, as opposed to Australian resource stocks, and gains earlier made in Asia were turning down, following the Australian markets.
"Sharemarkets are in a better position [starting] 2011 than the same time in 2010 because of the positive data out of the US," Mr Timms said.
Forsyth Barr's Dunedin manager Ken Lister said the United Kingdom, European and Japanese stock markets all saw gains, led mainly by mining and oil companies, on their opening days; before some then took a downturn.
"The national benchmark indexes advanced in 10 of the 18 western European markets," Mr Lister said.
The pan-European FTS Eurofirst 300 index closed up 0.8%, with Britain's FTSE 100 rising 1.9% on its first trading day of the year.
Mr Lister said shares in BP, which had plummeted after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill last year, surged by 5.9% after its lawyer Kenneth Feinburg said half of the $US20 billion oil spill fund was expected to cover the claims for economic losses.
Mr Lister said Japan's Nikkei average climbed to a seven-month closing high on its first day of trading for the year - up 1.7% - helped by strong global manufacturing data and by a bounce in the US dollar against the yen.
Resource-related companies in Japan led the gains, on the back of favourable oil prices which had been hovering around $US92 a barrel during the past week, while stocks in banks and other financial shares rose, following gains in their US counterparts, Mr Lister said.
