KEY POINTS:
Stock market participants said yesterday they were concerned that the Government's Auckland Airport intervention would have a chilling influence on vital foreign interest in the local market.
Forsyth Barr research manager Rob Mercer said, beyond particular corporate plays, there were implications for bread and butter investors such as Australian fund managers.
"They will be mindful of some of the things that have occurred in the last six to 12 months, such as takeovers that haven't gone through, changes in regulation around Telecom for example.
"The downside risk here is that they're losing confidence in what's going on in our market in terms of interference in the competitive landscape. Global markets are weak at the moment, you don't need much to swing people into saying they don't have to invest here.
"We have a lot of good performing companies that deserve to be able to attract international investors, so you need a really sound regulatory and securities regime that people can rely on, and that has shifted in the last 12 months."
Meanwhile, although the Australian sharemarket continued to suffer yesterday, losses were far less than Monday's carnage among financial stocks.
Wright noted that Australia's big financial stocks had taken a huge beating in recent months.
"It makes our market look positively gentile."
The sharemarket yesterday continued to hold fast against continuing negative sentiment from overseas and the Government's ambush of Canada Pension Plan Investment Board's bid. At one point , the benchmark NZX-50 looked destined to play catch up with the ASX-200's 3 per cent dive on Monday, losing as much as 2.2 per cent. But it clambered back off its lows to finish flat at 3584.47.
