NZ stocks: Sharemarket hits 14-month low

12.00pm

The New Zealand sharemarket hit a 14-month low today following a huge slump in the British market.

Overnight, Britain's FTSE 100 took a fearful hammering, slumping 4.8 per cent to fresh 7-1/2 year lows on concerns that Britain will join a possible Iraqi war.

New Zealand's old benchmark NZ40 capital index was down to levels not seen since October 2001, following the September 11 terrorist attacks. Just after 11am it had dropped 9.88 points to 1868.27, a fall of half a per cent.

The new NZ50 gross index was not far from that level, down 13.05 points to 1880.53, or negative 0.69 per cent.

Turnover was light at $15.1 million but boosted by the sale of 1 million Auckland Airport shares worth $5.7 million. It was down 4c at 528.

The market was led down by heavyweight stock Telecom, off 3c to 424. News yesterday that Telstra was taking full control of TelstraClear and that Telstra saw New Zealand as pivotal to its strategy was viewed as negative for Telecom.

AMP fell 20c to a new record low of 635 on concern about the plight of the British market where it has heavy exposure. The company has taken out synthetic derivative contracts to limit the damage to its investments in Britain.

Richmond rose 1c to 309, just 2c shy of PPCS's offer price.

There were few other moves of note. On the downside, the Warehouse fell 5c to 569, Fisher & Paykel Appliances fell 10c to 940, AMP dropped 20c to 635, Contact fell 4c to 441, Fletcher Building was off 8c to 358 and Sky City fell 4c to 870, all on fairly light trading.

Rises included Genesis up 5c to 120, Independent Newspapers up 3c to 315, Vertex up 4c to 149, and Ports of Auckland up 6c to 628.

There were only 17 stocks to rise while 36 fell among the 98 traded.

Wall Street was initially also down but staged a late rally so the Dow closed up 25 points at 7550.

- NZPA