KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand sharemarket dipped today amid a lack of corporate news, with investors waiting for details on top-10 takeover targets.
The NZSX-50 benchmark index closed down 8.7 points, or 0.2 per cent, at 4313.15, on turnover totalling $144 million.
Top stock Telecom was flat at 452, profit-takers shook Fletcher Building down 34c, or nearly 3 per cent, to 1234, and Contact Energy was down a cent at 942.
The highlight was provided by small-cap technology exporter Scott Technology, which soared 17 per cent, or 31c, to 215 after reporting a better than expected annual profit of $3 million.
"It was better than market expectations - it's mainly an exporter and it's handled the high New Zealand dollar extremely well," said Grant Williamson of Hamilton Hindin Greene.
Among the takeover targets, Auckland Airport was up 5c at 307 on heavy turnover, while Sky City was up 7c at 547.
"There's still a fair degree of interest in Sky City following the recent announcement of another party being interested in the stock, investors now starting to think if there's two parties there could possibly be a bidding war if both were interested," Mr Williamson said.
"The market is waiting for some further information on the M&A activity on Auckland Airport and Sky City, so elsewhere everything's pretty much on hold until we get a bit more detail there."
Other top-10 stocks were mixed. Fisher & Paykel Appliances was up a cent at 370, F&P Healthcare rose a cent to 338, Sky TV was up 4c at 586, and lines company Vector fell 5c to 237.
Air New Zealand fell 13c to 211 as oil prices remained near record highs, although oil and gas producer NZ Oil and Gas was also weaker.
"The rising oil price (is) making record levels pretty much on a nightly basis at the moment but NZOG, after a good strong improvement in the past couple of days, has given up a cent to 108," Mr Williamson said.
Tower rose 7c to 230, Tourism Holdings gained 17c to 248, Steel and Tube was up 3c at 439, Ebos jumped 17c to 529, carpet maker Cavalier was up 5c to 325, and The Warehouse rose 5c to 546.
Freightways lost 9c to 391 while Mainfreight rose 4c to 702.
NZX lost 10c to 940, retirement village company Ryman lost 4c to 215, Skellerup fell 2c to 107, and Methven fell 5c to 245.
Shares in troubled vending technology company VTL were removed from suspension after the market closed, having last traded in mid-August at 70c.
Australia's benchmark index was up 1 per cent at 6752, while in Japan the Nikkei average rose 0.8 per cent.
Earlier on Wall Street, the Nasdaq index rose 1 per cent, propelled higher on enthusiasm about the outlook for technology profits after strong results from bellwether companies Intel Corp and Yahoo Inc.
- NZPA
