KEY POINTS:
The steam was taken out of the local sharemarket by a weak Australian market today.
The market rose nearly 1 per cent in the morning, but the benchmark index ended negative.
"It was very disappointing," said ASB Securities broker Stephen Wright.
He said the local market had opened around 1 per cent higher after a reasonable rally on Wall Street, but was undercut by Australia which went against the trend in Asia. Concerns about the finance sector there had undercut confidence, Mr Wright said.
Here, the two top stocks underwent substantial swings. Telecom, up 3c in the morning, closed down 6c on 403, while Fletcher Building had traded up to 1042 and ended 16c down on 1015.
No.3 stock Contact Energy held a 5c gain to 755 after reporting reasonable quarterly metrics.
The benchmark NZSX-50 index closed 6.2 points down at 3704.2, having closed down 18.28 points yesterday after a three-day rebound last week.
Turnover was moderate at $75m.
National Property Trust was the star of the day, rising 10c to 65c after reporting an $11.4m profit, of which $11.1m was property revaluations.
There were some substantial moves among the small stocks.
Apple computer reseller Renaissance fell 12c, 17 per cent, to 58c when it announced Apple would be selling directly to some large retailers.
New Image fell 4c to 13c while Allied Workforce fell 8c to 92c. On the other side, CableTalk rose 2c to 18c.
Among the leaders, those to fall included Rakon 15c to 354, and The Warehouse 3c to 570.
But there were plenty of gainers, including Ebos, 9c to 489, Auckland Airport, 3c to 271, Air NZ, 2c to 182, Hallenstein Glasson, 7c to 360, Trustpower, 9c to 778 and Steel & Tube, 6c to 370.
Despite weakness in Australia, ANZ Bank rose 32c to 3032, Westpac 38c to 3008 and Lion Nathan 4c to 1067.
- NZPA
