NZ market weakens as others rise

Declines in the price of both Fletcher Building and Telecom weighed on the New Zealand sharemarket today.

So while the Australian market was up more than 2 per cent the New Zealand's benchmark NZSX-50 index finished its day down 10.359 points, or 0.329 per cent, at 3141.189.

Turnover was worth $86.35 million. There were 58 rises and 27 falls among the 116 stocks traded.

Fletcher Building closed down 18c at 822 and Telecom closed down 6c at 252.

"Fletcher Building has had a reasonably good run but the movement today is just flows," said James Lee, head of institutional equities at First NZ Capital.

There were quite simply just more sellers than buyers.

"Telecom is more interesting. It's broken through a technical level," he said. This was at 258.

There was also weakness in a range of mid to leading shares. SkyCity fell 2c to 322, Contact fell 1c to 589 and Auckland Airport fell 2c to 192.

Westpac was up 70c to 3070 before trading was halted ahead of a judgment on the New Zealand tax case where $903 million of tax and interest is disputed.

Trading in Pyne Gould Corp rights was heavy with 19 million rights traded. The price has fallen to less than a cent at 0.9c. The existing shares were unchanged at 42, near the 40c new shares will be purchased in the offer.

Infratil rose 1c to 168 as the lobby by its Snapper electronic ticket product for use in Auckland got some media coverage.

Steel and Tube fell 10c to 300, Cavalier fell 10c to 245 and Tourism Holdings fell 1c to 69.

Air NZ rose 3c to 129 after chief executive Rob Fyfe highlighted initiatives on energy efficiencies in a speech in Hong Kong.

He told Reuters Air New Zealand had started to see recovery in demand, but passenger yields would recover only by the end of 2010.

NZ Oil & Gas continued to rally, rising 3c to 173.

NZ Refining rose 4c to 490, despite reporting that refining margins were under pressure.

Rakon rose 1c to 123, Fisher and Paykel Appliances 1c to 68, Nuplex 3c to 238 and GPG 1c to 88.

NZX, which announced an acquisition in Australia on Tuesday, rose 18c to 818.

Xero rose 7c to 142, Rubicon fell 10c to 100 and PGG Wrightson rose 1c to 63.

The three major US stock indexes all rose more than 1 per cent, ahead of the quarterly earnings season, which kicks off on Wednesday US time, when Alcoa Inc will announce results after the closing bell.

Alcoa shares gained 3.5 per cent, while Caterpillar Inc added 1.87 per cent and was a top boost to the Dow industrials.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 1.37 per cent to 9731.25 and the Standard & Poor's 500 Index climbed 1.37 per cent to 1054.72.

- NZPA