KEY POINTS:
The sharemarket continued to slide today, although it managed a small recovery from early losses over 2 per cent amid a grim day on global markets.
The benchmark top-50 index closed down 1.8 per cent, or 65.61 points, at 3664.4, on turnover totalling $111.3 million.
The tone of the local market was set by another ugly session on Wall Street, in which key indices slumped 2 to 3 per cent. The top-50 has now lost around 10 per cent in its 12-day losing streak.
"Some had small movements, others had bigger, a lot of it depended on liquidity in stocks," said Stephen Wright of ASB Securities.
Top stock Telecom was among the few stocks to rise, up a cent at 414. It had earlier hit a 16-month low of 400.
"It seemed that there was some local institutional support for Telecom in the 400/410 region, relating to their restructuring, their dividend, their (financial) announcement on February 8," Mr Wright said.
Fletcher Building matched the market decline with its 19c loss to 1001, while Contact Energy slid 3 per cent, or 25c, to 750. Both stocks were at their lowest in more than a year.
Auckland International Airport was down 8c at 260, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare was down 3c at 319, F&P Appliances lost 5c to 282, Sky City was down 2c at 409 and Sky TV lost 5c to 535.
The Warehouse slipped 30c to 545, Freightways was down 17c at 333, Mainfreight lost 17c to 580, NZX shed 14c to 835, and Infratil lost 20c to 250.
Trustpower was down 25c at 735, Tourism Holdings lost 14c to 194, Sanford fell 11c to 380, and Nuplex lost 30c to 590.
Among the risers, Rakon was up 5c at 345, Vector rose a cent to 219, and Tower rose 3c to 223.
Dual-listed stocks were mixed, with ANZ up 25c to 3025, Westpac up 25 to 2965, AMP down 15c at 955, and Lion Nathan 8c lower at 1012.
Australia's benchmark index was down 0.7 per cent at 5754, while Japan's Nikkei average was up 0.2 per cent.
Earlier, United States stocks dropped heavily as data showing a plunge in regional factory activity and news of a hefty loss by brokerage Merrill Lynch fanned worries about the economy.
Merrill Lynch & Co Inc fuelled more concerns about the health of the financial sector when it reported about US$16 billion ($21b) in mortgage-related write-downs and adjustments in the worst quarter in the company's history.
- NZPA
