NZ stocks: Share market depressed in morning trading

The sharemarket was slightly depressed late this morning as trading continued on the back of a quiet day yesterday.

The benchmark NZSX50 gross index opened down 9.87 points, or 0.45 per cent, at 2182.47, while the NZSX40 capital index lost 8.73 points, or 0.41 per cent, at 2119.81.

By 11.30am on NZX, there had been $24.7 million of shares traded on volume of 8 million. Among the 93 stocks traded so far were 13 rises and 36 falls.

Market leader Telecom was 4c down at 515, having traded $18.5 million worth of shares on volume of 3.6 million.

Forsyth Barr broker David Price said he thought trading today would be extremely quiet in terms of value and turnover.

"It (the market) drifted low on open and I think it's going to be like that all day," he told NZPA.

The Dow Jones industrial average finished the holiday-shortened session down 72.63 points at 9070.21, while the broader Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 8.05 points to 985.70.

The Nasdaq Composite Index eased 15.28 points to 1663.45, in London the FTSE100 closed up 17.9 points at 4024.8, and in Japan the Nikkei average closed up 32.56 points at 9624.80.

In the United States, the markets will be closed today to mark Independence Day.

On NZX there were few rises at 11.30am, among them being Tower up 2c to 147 and Tranz Rail up 1c to 93.

On the slide were: AMP down 2c at 576, Auckland International Airport down 1c to 599, Carter Holt Harvey down 1c to 174, Contact Energy down 4c to 495, Genesis Energy down 8c to 119, Guinness Peat Group down 2c to 158, Promina down 2c to 268, Sanford down 2c to 498, Sky City down 7c to 930, The Warehouse down 3c to 495, and Westpac down 5c to 1800.

- NZPA