NZ market closes slightly lower

The New Zealand sharemarket eased a touch today while most markets in Asia pushed on.

"I think both New Zealand and Australia are suffering from a continued rally in their currencies," said Grant Williamson, director of Hamilton, Hindin, Greene.

"All the Asian markets were firmer with the exception of Australia and New Zealand," he said.

The benchmark NZSX-50 index closed down 5.684 points, or 0.179 per cent, at 3163.254. Turnover was worth $107.26 million. There were 43 rises and 32 falls among the 110 stocks traded.

The market was struggling to push on when leaders were weak but some second line stock posted respectable gains.

Telecom shares fell 2c to 257 and Fletcher Building fell 13c to 817.

Hellaby fell 5c to 165, Infratil, which owns the strike-affected NZ Bus, fell 3c to 164. Michael Hill fell 1c to 71, Contact fell 7c to 591 and GPG fell 1c to 87.

Freightways rose 10c to 310, Goodman Fielder rose 7c to 210, NZOG rose 3c to 176 and SkyTV rose 8c to 478. Mainfreight rose 9c to 541. Ryman rose 2c to 186 and AirNZ rose 1c to 133. NZX rose 5c to 820 and SkyCity rose 1c to 324.

TrustPower rose 5c to 748 and The Warehouse rose 3c to 443.

Westpac rose 1c to 31.81 on top of a 110c gain yesterday even though it lost a court case against the Inland Revenue Department, involving $961m in back taxes.

Scottech rose 2c to 101 after reporting a small profit and Smartpay rose 0.6 to 3.5 after announcing the purchase of a supplier.

Pyne Gould shares fell 1c to 41 and the rights, which are still trading in big volume, fell 0.1c to 0.4c.

US stocks rose on Thursday as a surprising quarterly profit from Alcoa Inc got third-quarter earnings off to a strong start.

Alcoa gained 1.1 per cent a day after the Dow component posted its first profit after three consecutive quarterly losses, on cost savings and higher aluminium prices.

Adding to positive sentiment, US retailers posted generally strong same-store sales figures, while the Labour Department said the number of US workers filing new jobless claims slid to a nine-month low last week.

"You had more positive economic news, and Alcoa numbers were better than expected on both revenue and net income. So that lends credibility to the bulls' thesis that the economy is gaining momentum," said Jim Awad, managing director at Zephyr Management in New York.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 61.29 points, or 0.63 per cent, to end at 9786.87. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 7.90 points, or 0.75 per cent, to 1065.48.

The Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 13.60 points, or 0.64 per cent, at 2123.93.

- NZPA