KEY POINTS:
The sharemarket lurched between negative and positive today on very light turnover, despite a stronger Wall Street and firmer markets around the region.
There was an absence of buying as cautious investors awaited developments, including quarterly earnings from US financial firms and a Federal Reserve meeting expected to yield hefty US rate cuts.
The New Zealand market plunged 2 per cent yesterday, taking its cue from the US market which plummeted on Friday at the near collapse of major financial house, Bear Stearns.
Today, the NZSX-50 index closed down 10.8 points, or 0.3 per cent, at 3418.6 on tiny turnover valued at $66.3 million. The index earlier hit a fresh two-year low of 3395.9.
"The stock that really dragged us up was Telecom," said Stephen Wright of ASB Securities.
"Unfortunately what didn't help the market was quite big falls in less liquid stocks. In those stocks, where there's less institutional demand, just scarcity of buyers had an impact."
Telecom was up 9c at 384, while the handful of other stocks to gain included Fletcher Building, up 2c at 243, Auckland Airport, up 2c at 243, and Property for Industry, up 2c at 122.
Air New Zealand recovered 11c, or 8.5 per cent, to 141 after going ex-dividend yesterday and hitting a 17-month low. Air NZ said yesterday it is increasing domestic, trans-Tasman and Pacific Island airfares by 3 per cent because of higher fuel prices, and has not ruled out further fare rises.
Among the biggest losers were Contact Energy, down 18c to 827, carpetmaker Cavalier, down 19c to 242, Steel & Tube, down 18c to 274, Mainfreight, off 22c to 568, and Freightways, down 23c to 287.
Port of Tauranga lost 22c to 608 after announcing it would lose 78 ship visits a year when Hamburg Sud Trident and Maersk merge some of their North America services.
Sky City fell 7c to 370, Sky TV was down 13c at 468, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare lost a cent to 278, and F&P Appliances was down 7c at 232.
NZ Refining fell 35c to 710 as it went ex-dividend, Hallenstein Glasson lost 10c to 339, Rakon was down 5c at 208, Ebos shed 15c to 450, and The Warehouse was down 2c at 597.
Australia's benchmark index was up 0.1 per cent at 5092 on the back of large gains in banking stocks, while Japan's Nikkei share average was up nearly 1 per cent.
Earlier, US blue chips posted small gains as Wall Street kept calm after plunges in global markets linked to the sliding dollar and fears of fallout from the meltdown of investment bank Bear Stearns.
- NZPA
