NZ stocks: Market feels pressure of Wall St fall

12.00pm

The sharemarket fell slightly this morning feeling the pressure of a down session on Wall Street.

The barometer NZSE-40 capital index was down 1.98 points, or 0.10 per cent, at 2010.85 on slim turnover worth $25.99 million at about 11.30am.

"There's going to be a little bit of pressure on the market this morning on the back of lower market in the US overnight," Andrew Kelleher of ASB Securities said.

"If you look at the overseas sessions as a whole, Europe managed a bit of a rally but the US closed down and we are just following suit this morning."

In the United States on Thursday, the technology-loaded Nasdaq Composite index lost 15 points, or 1.17 per cent, to 1304, after raking in a gain of more than 2 per cent on Wednesday. The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial average fell 151 points, or 1.79 per cent, to 8342.

Mr Kelleher said the New Zealand market was quiet and much of the trading was in Telecom, which fell 2c to 507 on $14.24 million worth of shares.

ANZ was down 10c to 2100, despite announcing a record $2.68 billion profit yesterday.

Mr Kelleher said the stock would have to fight against the pull of Wall St if the strong profit performance was to be reflected in the market today.

WestpacTrust fell 15c to 1480 ahead of its October 31 profit announcement, AMP was down 25c to 1470 and Fisher and Paykel Appliances fell 15c to 1065.

Telstra, which has priced a $250 million retail bond offering in Japan, fell 1c to 541.

Auckland Airport was in positive territory, up 3c to 535, as was Independent Newspapers, up 10c to 310.

Restaurant Brands, which is due to replace United Networks on the NZSE-40 on November 1, was up 1c to 164.

There were 31 falls outnumbering 18 rises on 60 stocks traded so far.

- NZPA