NZ stocks: Wall St weakness infects market

12:00 pm

A drop of more than 2 per cent on Wall Street, which was in the grip of "Enronphobia", pulled the New Zealand sharemarket down today.

Wall Street is grappling with a crisis of confidence after energy trading giant Enron Corp's complicated accounting problems led to its record collapse and cast a pall over the market. Accounting concerns caught up with conglomerate Tyco today.

The NZSE-40 capital index was down 14.00 points, 0.65 per cent, to 2129.63 by 11.30am on steady volume of 8.4 million worth $26.8 million.

The selling was across the board here but brokers said the New Zealand market was still relatively outperforming Wall Street and other major markets and there were few fears of contagion on the accounting front.

Macquaries Equities broker Rob Gwyther said the heat had come out of market leaders Telecom and Fletcher Building, although the market was doing quite well.

"You've got the mixed data that you get at the bottom of a recession but there are some really encouraging signs that there are some growth shoots poking through.

"However, you have still got some of the legacies that the recession has caught."

He said that New Zealand was unlikely to swim against the tide but there had been more positives than negatives and dips were getting bought because there were enough robust stories around and the macro-economic picture looked healthy.

Turnover in Telecom was worth over $10.6 million. It fell back 6c to 552 after hitting a six-month high yesterday.

There was also good volume in Auckland Airport, with over 1 million shares worth $4.0 million traded. It was down 2c to 390.

The Warehouse fell 7c to 680, despite producing a strong sales report for the Christmas period. Third quarter sales rose by 12.9 per cent in the three months ending January 31, compared with the same quarter a year earlier. The Red Shed same-store sales increased 7.4 per cent in the quarter while in Australia there was a 21.7 per cent overall increase in sales and a 3.5 per cent increase in same-store sales. The stock hit an all-time high of $6.90 yesterday.

Contact Energy rebounded 2c to 377 after falling yesterday when Edison Mission pulled its takeover bid.

Among those to fall were: Fletcher Building, 2c to 300, Lion Nathan, 7c to 593, AMP, 22 to 2300, Briscoe, 3c to 172, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, 25c to 1435 and F&P Appliances, 20c to 975.

There were only 14 stocks up against 46 falls among the 109 stocks traded.

- NZPA