NZ stocks: Cautious trade as offshore markets drop

6.00pm

The sharemarket traded in tepid fashion today, weighed down by profit-taking on Telecom and a negative night on Wall Street.

The NZSE-40 Index ended down 5.26 points to 1986.15 on volume of $74.5 million.

Brokers said there was "still reasonable volume going through the market" but weakening offshore markets left our market softer across the board.

The exception, said James Snell of First NZ Capital, was defensive stock Lion Nathan which jumped 15c to 625, mostly on buying out of Australia.

Auckland International Airport fell 7c to 433, as confidence in the offshore airport sector fell, particularly in Australia's Macquarie Bank airport fund.

Telecom still dominated by the turnover, accounting for about half of the value on $36.6 million worth of shares -- "as you would expect when you see a large placement and the stock gets about 20 per cent more liquid in the market", Mr Snell said.

"You see the turnover is still fairly large as people reweight their positions towards Telecom NZ."

Despite the activity, Telecom closed down a cent to 496.

AMP, which has recently recouped some of its hefty losses, lost some ground again today despite the London sharemarket having a good session. Shares in the Australian-based financial services company dropped 44c to 1361, although on minimal volume of 22756 shares.

Fellow insurer Axa fell 5c to 280, while elsewhere in the financial sector WestpacTrust, soon to change its name in New Zealand to Westpac, was off 10c to 1530; and Tower was up 2c at 383.

Rarely traded Dairy Brands rose 3c to 61.

Mainfreight, expected to be a winner from the P&O Nedlloyd restructure of its services to New Zealand ports, rose 1c to 107.

Most other moves were on light turnover. Among the blue chips, Carter Holt Harvey was up 2c at 162, Contact Energy lost 4c to 374, Fletcher Building lost 3c to 291, and casino operator Sky City was down 4c at 726.

Vertex and Skellmax, which have both underperformed since listing this year, were up 3c at 128 and down 1c at 95 respectively, with Skellmax touching a year low of 94.

The two Fisher & Paykel companies were level-pegged at 970, both falling 20c with the appliance unit on strong turnover worth $11.3 million. Tranz Rail fell 7c to 155 on light turnover.

Among the retailers, Pacific Retail was down 6c at 324, Hallenstein Glassons was steady at 280, and Briscoe Group fell 3c to 237, while The Warehouse rose 3c to 715.

Bluff-based South Port was up 5c at 170 despite warning shareholders today that last year's record performance was unlikely to be repeated this year.

There were 69 falls and 28 rises among the 138 stocks traded.

On Wall St, United States stocks sank after a seesaw session as gnawing worries over earnings of giants such as Dow Chemical and Cisco Systems and the threat of war eroded the previous day's fat rally.

The blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average fell 183.18 points, or 2.31 per cent, to 7755.61, after rising more than 4.5 per cent on Tuesday.

The technology-laced Nasdaq Composite Index lost 26.42 points, or 2.18 per cent, to 1187.30, following its 3.5 per cent gain the day before.

- NZPA