NZ stocks: Leaders slide on broadly negative market

6.00pm

Blue chip stocks had a down day on the New Zealand sharemarket in contrast to most Asian counterparts.

Telecom, Carter Holt Harvey and even Fletcher Buildi ng drifted off in the afternoon, regardless of Fletcher Building's solid interim result today.

"Things that had been doing going pretty well over the last few days just all suffered from bouts of profit-taking ," Stephen Wright, of ASB Securities, said.

"Our market's down 20 (points) whereas the rest of Asia in general is up slightly."

The NZSE-40 capital index fell just over one per cent to 1939.36 on moderate turnover worth $66.2 million, in line with a weaker Wall St.

Among those being punished was jeweller Michael Hill International, which plummeted 65c to 500 after warning its interim operating profit would be down about 10 per cent.

"Over the last few months, any disappointment, any profit shortfall, any worsening outlook has all been met with sellers hitting stocks hard," Mr Wright said.

He did not feel the stock was oversold yet but noted it was a relatively illiquid, tightly held stock and "it wouldn't take much to turn that around".

Fletcher Building, which said today it had more than doubled its interim profit to $83 million, also received few bouquets.

It warned the upturn in residential construction market may tail off next year, and after an initial 6c rise, the stock ended down 12c to 355 on solid volume.

Telecom dominated the turnover, down 3c to 449 on $25.7 million shares. Recent solid trading in the market leader was probably from offshore institutional flows because local private interest was low, Mr Wright said.

"The outlook for Telecom hasn't changed much but... there's always somebody who wants to give it a go."

Other leaders on the downside included Carter Holt Harvey down 4c to 175, the Warehouse down 13c to 590, and Contact Energy down 7c to 440 after hitting a year high of $4.50 yesterday.

Several other stocks positioned themselves ahead of results news. F&P Healthcare was down 32c to 1008 ahead of its third quarter results on Friday, and its sister company F&P Appliances shed 20c to 1030.

Fletcher Forests' head shares were steady at 114 and its preference shares were down a cent to 113 ahead of tomorrow's interim result. Turners Auctions, which reports on Friday, fell 6c to 279.

An unexplained flurry of trading in GPG failed to kick the share price up, remaining steady at 147.

Yesterday's star performer Vertex spiked another 10c to 155 after a stand in the market yesterday brought on competing bids.

All up, falls outnumbered rises 58 to 43 on 141 stocks traded.

On Wall St, an audiotape suspected of being from Osama bin Laden reignited war jitters, and they were reinforced by a cautious outlook on the US economy from Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan.

Mr Greenspan said uncertainties created by possible war with Iraq posed "formidable barriers" to business spending and clouded the economic outlook.

The blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average fell 77 points, or 0.97 per cent, to 7843.11. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 Index ended off 6.77 points, or 0.81 per cent, at 829.20. The tech-laced Nasdaq Composite ended off 1.22 points, or 0.09 per cent, to 1295.46.

- NZPA