NZ stocks: Market down 2.3pc, turnover light

12.00pm

The New Zealand sharemarket was at eight-month lows this morning and looked set to slide further today.

After another nightmare on Wall St on Friday, when signs of panic buying appeared, the NZSE-40 capital index fell 2.29 per cent, or 46.86 points, to 200.20, after opening down 1.97 per cent. The sharemarket has not seen levels like this since November.

On the back of the market woes elsewhere, turnover was minimal -- 35.49 million stocks valued at $18.02 million -- topped in value by Telecom's $3.85 million.

US investors were nervously awaiting their Monday morning after stocks skidded on Friday, slamming the Dow Jones industrial average to lows last seen in 1998, well below its panic bottom of September 2001.

Woes at drug giant Johnson & Johnson and tech heavyweight Sun Microsystems Inc sent investors fleeing. A poor outlook for company profits helped erase 14 per cent off the Dow's value, and Wall St looks set to continue falling.

In Britain the market tumbled 4.6 per cent on Friday, while the Australian sharemarket lost nearly A$9 billion ($NZ10.4 billion) in value today as it tumbled to a new nine-month low.

Andrew Kelleher of ASB Securities said the New Zealand market was unlikely to beat the same path as the Dow Jones, although individual stocks would fall.

Despite the falls this morning New Zealand investors appeared to feel somewhat insulated against the selloff in the US and scandal-hit Corporate America, partly because they had not seen the highs reached on Wall St.

"One of the interesting stories in the last week or two has been that our turnover has died a bit, it looks like locally people are not throwing the volumes of stock out, there looks like there is an element of investors watching from the sidelines," Mr Kelleher said.

"It's an interesting reaction ... there doesn't appear to be any widespread panic, we appear to be selling off in a relatively orderly manner."

Among the leaders, by mid-morning Telecom lost 16c to hit an eight-month low of 470, Carter Holt Harvey was down 6c at 191, Sky City casino lost 10c to 625, Australian telco Telstra shed 19c to 530, Contact Energy lost 5c to 377, and Fletcher Building was down 8c to an eight-month low of 268.

Fisher & Paykel Healthcare was down 20c at 830, while Appliances was down 5c at 870.

Briscoe Group lost 10c to 229, Baycorp Advantage was down 11c at 430, The Warehouse shed 10c to 730, Tranz Rail lost 6c to 218, Fletcher Forests preference shares lost 1c to 24, Rubicon was down 2c at 75 and Auckland Airport was down 4c at 420.

Air New Zealand lost 2c to 65 on news Qantas is expanding its New Zealand fleet, and Virgin Blue is meeting with the Commerce Commission today about Qantas seeking a stake in Air NZ.

There were 77 falls and six rises on the 113 stocks traded.

On Wall St on Friday the Dow sank 390.23 points, or 4.64 per cent, to 8019.26; the broader Standard & Poor's 500 Index lost 33.81 points, or 3.84 per cent, to 847.75; and the tech-laced Nasdaq Composite Index fell 37.88 points, or 2.79 per cent, to 1319.07.

- NZPA