KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand sharemarket trundled along at lower levels today, despite continuing improvement by Telecom.
The market ended down 2.65 points, or 0.1 per cent, at 2771.5, having been no further down than 16 points at its lowest today, early in the afternoon.
There were 35 rises and 37 falls. Just over 30 million shares were traded, worth $77m.
Today's gentle decline was achieved despite worse performances on overseas markets.
Trading in the United States ended last week with another rough day, while late in the New Zealand trading session Japan's Nikkei share average was down 0.5 per cent, Australia's benchmark stocks index was down 1 per cent, and an index of stocks in Asia-Pacific outside Japan was down 1.1 per cent.
"Just a typical performance of our market this year where it's weathered the downturns quite well," ABN Amro Craigs senior dealer Bryon Burke said.
The market in this country had a mixed tone today, with Guinness Peat Group and Fletcher Building probably having the largest impact on the downside.
GPG ended the day down 4c at 79, while Fletcher Building slipped 7c to 558.
More hopefully, Telecom continued its rise after having trended upwards throughout January, with one sizeable dip, from below 230 at the end of 2008.
Telecom ended today up 3c at 269, having got up to 271 at one stage, its highest level in more than two months.
Mr Burke said that even at its current price, Telecom's forecast yield was reasonable and the low value of the New Zealand dollar made Telecom look even cheaper to overseas investors.
Also many investors were under weight in Telecom last year, so there was not a lot of natural selling out there to sell into the rallies.
Specialty resins and chemicals manufacturer and marketer Nuplex Industries ended down 21c at 267, after providing a market update today.
Nuplex said its operations continued to be affected by volatile trading conditions. Restructuring costs and non-recurring items totalling $2.1 million plus additional provisions for bad and doubtful debts of $3.2m had reduced ebitda for the first half of the 2009 financial year to $42.5m, a little below guidance provided in November.
Other larger movements today included Mainfreight down 13c to 405, Fisher & Paykel Appliances down 5c to 120, and Sanford down 4c to 532.
Among stocks to gain today, NZX lifted 15c to 565, Trustpower added 14c to 760, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare was up 7c to 345, NZ Refining Co added 6c to 651, Steel & Tube and Freightways both gained 5c to 300, while Rakon was up 4c to 100 and Hallenstein Glasson was up 4c to 221.
In the US on Friday (local time), the Dow Jones industrial average fell 1.8 per cent, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index slid 2.3 per cent and the Nasdaq Composite Index tumbled 2.1 per cent.
Both the Dow and the benchmark S&P 500 suffered their worst January ever, with the Dow down 8.8 per cent and the S&P down 8.6 per cent. The Nasdaq dropped 6.4 per cent in January.
- NZPA
